Diane shima Rwigara, I know you are passing through a severe crisis of scepticism and doubt, but i want you to buy Tolstoy’s book, The kingdom of God is with you, and you will be deeply impressed by it. I was at that time a believer in violence, but its reading cured me of my scepticism and made me a firm believer in nonviolence.
What has appealed to me most in Tolstoy’s life is that he practised what he preached and reckoned no cost too great in his pursuit of truth. Take the simplicity of his life, it was wonderful. Born and brought up in the midst of luxury and comfort of a rich aristocratic family, blessed in an abundant measure with all the stores of the earth that desire can covert, this man who had fully known all the joys and pleasures of life turned his back upon them in the prime of his youth and afterwards never looked back.
He was the most truthful man of this age. His life was a constant endeavor, an unbroken tide of striving to seek the truth, and to practise it as he found it. He never tried to hide the truth or tone it down but set it before the world in its entirety without equivocation or compromise, undeterred by the fear of any earthly power.
He was the greatest apostle of nonviolence that the present age has produced.
Kakuru Ian
