What is 'Where Love is There God is Also' by Leo Tolstoy all about?

Answer 1

Tolstoy's "Where Love is there is God Also" is a short story about an impoverished cobbler who is old and without children or a wife in czarist Russia. One day, he receives a visit from a traveling priest he used to know who wishes to have his leather bound Bible repaired. As they talk, the cobbler admits that he has become estranged from God since the death of his young son. The priest speaks words of encouragement and promises to pray for the cobbler. That night, the cobbler has a dream in which he dreams that Jesus promises to visit him three times the very next day. Confused by the dream, he watches the window the whole day waiting for Christ's visit. He is visited by three different poor strangers, each needing the cobbler's help, but not Jesus. He helps the three poor strangers in turn, but at the end of the day, Jesus has not come. That night, the cobbler reads the priest's Bible, and chances on the verse that says to have compassion for the least of Christ's brethren is the same as to help Christ himself. The cobbler realizes that where love is there is God also.