a confession

by lev nikolayevich tolstoy

i was baptized and brought up in the orthodox christian faith, i was taught it in childhood and throughout my boyhood and youth, but when i abandoned the second course of the university at the age of eighteen i no longer believed any of the things i had been taught.

judging by certain memories, i never seriously believed them, but had merely relied on what i was taught and on what was professed by the grown-up people around me , and that reliance was very unstable^^^^^^^