I In Petersburg in the eighteen-forties a surprising event occurred. An officer of the Cuirassier Life Guards, a handsome prince who everyone predicted would become aide-de-camp to the Emperor Nicholas I. and have a brilliant career, left the service, broke off his engagement to a beautiful maid of honor, a favorite of the Empresss, gave his small estate to his sister, and retired to a monastery to become a monk. This event appeared extraordinary and inexplicable to those who did not know his inner motives, but for Prince Stepan Kasatsky himself it all occurred so naturally that he could not imagine how he could have acted otherwise. His father, a retired colonel of the Guards, had died when Stepan was twelve, and sorry as his mother was to... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. 1 Epistle St. John iii. 14. Whoso hath the worlds goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth. iii. 17-18. Love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. iv. 7-8. No man hath beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abideth in us. iv. 12. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. iv. 16. If a man... (From : Gutenberg.org.)