Then follows a description of the rooms, the furniture &c., which was observed during the time that Mr. Kennan’s host had retired—not, indeed, to change his coat, but to put one on after a morning’s labour in the fields. Mr. Kennan, it seems, had journeyed through Siberia, and had there promised several of the exiles to visit Count Tolstoi on his return, and to tell him of their condition. In the course of conversation on these matters, Mr. Kennan asked Count Tolstoi whether he did not think that resistance to such oppression as the exiles had experienced was justifiable? “That depends,” he replied, “upon what you mean by resistance; if you mean persuasion, argument, protest, I answer yes; if you mean violence—no. I do not believe that violent resistance to evil is ever justifiable under any circumstances.” He then set forth clearly, eloquently, and with more feeling than he had yet shown, the views with regard to man’s duty as a member of society which are contained in his book entitled “My Religion,” and which are further explained and illustrated in a number of his recently published tracts for the people. He laid particular stress upon the doctrine of non-resistance to evil, which, he said, is in accordance with both the teachings of Christ and the results of human experience. He declared that violence, as a means of redressing wrongs, is not only futile, but an aggravation of the original evil, since it is the nature of violence to multiply and reproduce itself in all directions. “The Revolutionists,” he said, “whom you have seen in Siberia, undertook to resist evil by violence, and what has been the result? Bitterness, and misery, and hatred, and bloodshed! The evils against which they took up arms still exist, and to them has been added a mass of previously non-existent human suffering. It is not in that way that the kingdom of God is to be realised on earth.”