Tolstoy embodied in himself the tension between the ideal and the reality. For on the one hand he was convinced that to obey the Sermon on the Mount was ‘quite feasible’, while on the other hand his own mediocre performance told him that it was not. The truth lies in neither extreme position. For the standards of the Sermon are neither readily attainable by everyone, nor totally unattainable by anyone. To put them beyond anybody’s reach is to ignore the purpose of Christ’s sermon; to put them within