Tolstoi took part in the Crimean war, not as a spectator or reporter, but as an officer. He was repeatedly in imminent danger, and saw all the horrors of warfare, as described in "Sevastopol." Still, he found time somehow for literary work, wrote "Boyhood," and read Dickens in English. About this time he decided to substitute the Lord's Prayer in his private devotions for all other petitions, saying that "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" included everything. On the 5 March 1855 he wrote in his diary a curious prophecy of his present attitude toward religion: "My conversations on divinity and faith have led me to a great idea, for the realisation of which I am ready to devote my whole life. This idea is the founding of a new religion, corresponding to the level of human development, the religion of Christ, but purified of all dogmas and mysteries, a practical religion not promising a blessed future life, but bestowing happiness here on earth." In this same year he wrote the book which was the first absolute proof of his genius, and with the publication of which his reputation began--"Sevastopol in December." This was printed in the same review that had accepted his first work, was greeted with enthusiasm by Turgenev and the literary circles at Petersburg, was read by the Tsar, and translated into French at the imperial command. It was followed by "Sevastopol in May" and "Sevastopol in August," and Tolstoi found himself famous. It was evident that a man so absorbed in religious ideas and so sensitive to the hideous wholesale murder of war, could not remain for long in the army. He arrived at Petersburg on the 21 November 1855, and had a warm reception from the distinguished group of writers who were at that time contributors to the "Sovremennik* (The Contemporary Review)," which had published Tolstoi's work. This review had been founded by Pushkin in 1836, was now edited by Nekrassov, who had accepted Tolstoi's first article, "Childhood," and had enlisted the foremost writers of Russia, prominent among whom was, of course, Turgenev. The books which Tolstoi read with the most profit during this period were Goethe, Hugo's "Notre-Dame," Plato in French, and Homer in Russian. *An amusing caricature of the time represents Turgenev, Ovstrovski, and Tolstoi bringing rolls of manuscripts to the editors. Turgenev had a fixed faith in the future of Tolstoi; he was already certain that a great writer had appeared in Russia. Writing to a friend from Paris, in 1856, he said, "When this new wine is ripened there will be a drink fit for the gods." In 1857, after Tolstoi had visited him in Paris, Turgenev wrote, "This man will go far and will leave behind him a profound influence." But the two authors had little in common, and it was evident that there could never be perfect harmony between them. Explaining why he could not feel wholly at ease with Tolstoi, he said, "We are made of different clay."