Go through our great cities and observe the emaciated, sickly, and
distorted specimens of humanity to be found therein; recall your own
existence and that of all the people with whose lives you are familiar;
recall the instances of violent deaths and suicides of which you have
heard,--and then ask yourself for what cause all this suffering and
death, this despair that leads to suicide, has been endured. You will
find, perhaps to your surprise, that nine-tenths of all human suffering
endured by men is useless, and ought not to exist, that, in fact, the
majority of men are martyrs to the doctrine of the world.
One rainy autumn day I rode on the tramway by the Sukhareff Tower in
Moscow. For the distance of half a verst the vehicle forced its way
through a compact crowd which quickly reformed its ranks. From morning
till night these thousands of men, the greater portion of them starving
and in rags, tramped angrily through the mud, venting their hatred in
abusive epithets and acts of violence. The same sight may be seen in all
the market-places of Moscow. At sunset these people go to the taverns
and gaming-houses; their nights are passed in filth and wretchedness.
Think of the lives of these people, of what they abandon through choice
for their present condition; think of the heavy burden of labor without
reward which weighs upon these men and women, and you will see that they
are true martyrs. All these people have forsaken houses, lands, parents,
wives, and children; they have renounced all the comforts of life, and
they have come to the cities to acquire that which according to the
gospel of the world is indispensable to every one. And all these tens of
thousands of unhappy people sleep in hovels, and subsist upon strong
drink and wretched food. But aside from this class, all, from factory
workman, cab-driver, sewing girl, and lorette, to merchant and
government official, all endure the most painful and abnormal
conditions without being able to acquire what, according to the doctrine
of the world, is indispensable to each.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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