Whence came this radiant courage and power? It was simply because she dared to listen to the voices speaking to her soul, and _nothing else counted_. That's the life I want to get hold of. That is the courage and the life I wish to radiate. Afraid of men, of starvation, of opposition, of censure, of hatred, of ostracism? No! Why should we be afraid to lose a few cents, when our hands are filled with diamonds, and rubies, and pearls, and nuggets of gold? Why should we fear men, when we have the courage of our convictions?
Let us look not down, but up, and seek to draw from the heavens above the inspiration, the courage, the bravery, the heroism of the soul.
There has recently passed away in despotic Russia a man whose life for years has radiated moral courage throughout the world. Tolstoi had the courage of his convictions. He felt that social distinctions were wrong. Immediately he did the practical thing--put himself on the plane of every common laboring man by personally becoming a tiller of his own soil. "What a fool!" exclaimed the aristocratic world to which, by birth, he belonged. "Does he think he can change our opinions by that silly act?" they cried. No! He knew it would have little or no effect on them, but he was compelled to clear his own soul. So he braved their laughter and scorn, their contumely and contempt, that the world might know for certain what he really did think and feel.
He came to the conclusion that the Government of Russia, and the conduct of the ministers of the Greek Church--the established church of Russia--were neither in conformity with true religion nor true brotherhood. Though the former was despotic, and the latter as "hide-bound and dogmatic as rigid adherence to dead forms and creeds ever makes men," he fearlessly expressed his inmost convictions against both and called upon them to change, reform, amend their ways and actually become what they professed to be. The state threatened him with Siberian banishment unless he kept silence, but never till death silenced him did he heed the threatening command; the church cast him out, and then he wrote a book, _My Religion_, that gave newer and more exalted conceptions of religion to the world, even though possibly it would be hard to find a single man who accepts everything just as Tolstoi set it forth in that book.