SOURCE: "The Root of Religion," in The Sackbut, Vol. VII, No. II, June, 1927, pp. 314-16.

In the following essay, Maude briefly discusses the impact of Tolstoy's Confession immediately following the book's publication.

Few books have created so much surprise when they were produced, or influenced so wide a circle the world over, as Tolstoy's Confession. The reason of this was threefold.

First, the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina frankly exposed to every one the workings of his reason and conscience and the motives actuating his life in the past and in the present. This autobiographical interest by itself sufficed to secure widespread attention for the work.

Secondly, the book showed that the author's power of infecting his readers with his feelings operated as powerfully when he wrote of fundamental problems as it had done when he wrote fiction, and critics who began by bewailing that...