Produced by Gerard Arthus, Jana Srna and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY NOW READY =Bloch's "The Future of War"= Price, 50 cents; by mail, 65 cents =Charles Sumner's Addresses on War= Price, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents =Channing's Discourses on War= Price, 50 cents; by mail, 60 cents Edited with introductions by Edwin D. Mead. Published for the International Union by Ginn & Company, Boston. "BETHINK YOURSELVES!" BY LEO TOLSTOI PUBLISHED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL UNION GINN & COMPANY, BOSTON 1904 Reprinted from the _London Times_ Translated by V. Tchertkoff, Editor of the _Free Age Press_, and I. F. M. "BETHINK YOURSELVES!" "This is your hour, and the power of darkness."--Luke xxii. 53. I Again war. Again sufferings, necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for; again fraud; again the universal stupefaction and brutalization of men. Men who are separated from each other by thousands of miles, hundreds of thousands of such men (on the one hand--Buddhists, whose law forbids the killing, not only of men, but of animals; on the other hand--Christians, professing the law of brotherhood and love) like wild beasts on land and on sea are seeking out each other, in order to kill, torture, and mutilate each other in the most cruel way. What can this be? Is it a dream or a reality? Something is taking place which should not, cannot be; one longs to believe that it is a dream and to awake from it. But no, it is not a dream, it is a dreadful reality! One could yet understand how a poor, uneducated, defrauded Japanese, torn from his field and taught that Buddhism consists not in compassion to all that lives, but in sacrifices to idols, and how a similar poor illiterate fellow from the neighborhood of Toula or Nijni Novgorod, who has been taught that Christianity consists in worshipping Christ, the Madonna, Saints, and their ikons--one could understand how these unfortunate men, brought by the violence and deceit of centuries to recognize the greatest crime in the world--the murder of one's brethren--as a virtuous act, can commit these dreadful deeds, without regarding themselves as being guilty in so doing.