He never urges any one to refuse military service. It is a matter for every man to decide for himself. If he discusses the matter with any one who is hesitating, "he always advises him not to refuse obedience so long as it would not be morally impossible." For if a man hesitates it is because he is not ripe; and "it is better to have one soldier the more than a renegade or hypocrite, which is what becomes of those who undertake a task beyond their strength."[24] He distrusts the resolution of the refractory Gontcharenko. He fears "that this young man may have been carried away by vanity and vainglory, not by the love of God."[25] To the Doukhobors he writes that they should not persist in their refusal of obedience out of pride, but "if they are capable of so doing, they should save their weaker women and their children. No one will blame them for that." They must persist "only if the spirit of Christ is indeed within them, because then they will be happy to suffer."[26] In any case he prays those who are persecuted "at any cost not to break their affectionate relations with those who persecute them."[27] One must love even Herod, as he says in a letter to a friend: "You say, 'One cannot love Herod.'--I do not know, but I feel, and you also, that one must love him. I know, and you also, that if I do not love him I suffer, that there is no life in me."[28] The Divine purity, the unvarying ardour of this love, which in the end can no longer be contented even by the words of the Gospel: "Love thy neighbour as thyself," because he finds in them a taint of egoism![29] Too vast a love in the opinion of some; and so free from human egoism that it wastes itself in the void. Yet who more than Tolstoy distrusts "abstract love"? "The greatest modern sin: the abstract love of humanity, impersonal love for those who are--somewhere, out of sight.... To love those we do not know, those whom we shall never meet, is so easy a thing! There is no need to sacrifice anything; and at the same time we are so pleased with ourselves! The conscience is fooled.--No. We must love our neighbours--those we live with, and who are in our way and embarrass us."[30]