represented almost throughout our history the model of the true religious spirit and of the hopeful optimism of the nation. That can be said especially for the kings since Saint Sava"s time until the definite conquest of Serbia by the Sultans, _i.e._ since Richard and John"s time until the time of the Black Prince and Wycliffe, and from the Black Prince and Wycliffe till the end of the Wars of the Roses in England.
Our kings did what all the kings in the world do; they fought and ruled, they ate and drank, and danced and played, and still the majority of them took monastic vows and died in solitude and asceticism, and a great part of them were recognised by the people as saints and invoked by the oppressed in the dark times as the advocates of national justice, before G.o.d. They built beautiful churches and monasteries in the towns and forests. They strove always to build the "Houses of G.o.d" more solid and more costly than their own houses. Their castles and palaces they built to their own glory, and their pleasures no longer exist, but the churches they built to the glory of G.o.d still exist. In these churches our pious kings of old prayed; in these churches afterwards our hard oppressed people wept during the time of slavery; in these "Houses of G.o.d" the fanatic Turks enclosed their cattle, their goats and sheep, their horses and donkeys, thus abasing and ridiculing our sanctuaries.
But the more these sanctuaries have been abased and ridiculed by the enemy, the more they have been respected and adored by the people.
We Serbs cannot complain that our Middle Ages were as dark as the people in Europe are accustomed to represent their own. During the three hundred years of the reign of Neniania"s dynasty not one of our kings was killed. The importance of this fact only the historian can understand who knows well the history of our neighbours, the Byzantines and Venetians of that time, who in many other respects had been our teachers. We learnt many useful as well as perilous things from them, but we did not learn their art of poisoning kings, of torturing them, suffocating them, making them blind, cutting out their tongues, etc. It is only in modern times that we committed the great sins of the Middle Ages, namely, killing our kings and making civil wars. During the last hundred years we killed only three of our kings: Karageorge, Michael and Alexander. In modern times three have been killed in a hundred years, and in the Middle Ages not one in three hundred years!--a fact as unusual as curious. But you should remember that our modern times in Serbia began after five hundred years of a b.l.o.o.d.y slavery and dark education under Turkish tyranny.
I mention our great sins not in order to excuse but to accuse my people.
I will not even accuse the Turks, our rulers and educators during five hundred years. Our ancestors were accustomed to see human blood spilt every day. They were accustomed to hear about strangled sultans and viziers and pashas. And, besides, they lived through the record of all the crimes ever written in history; the Turks arranged a horrible b.l.o.o.d.y bath in executing their plan of killing all the leaders and priests among the Serbs! It happened only a hundred years ago, in the lifetime of Chateaubriand and Wordsworth, in the time of Pitt and Burke, in the time of your strenuous mission work among the cannibals. Our ancestors lived in blood and walked in blood. Our five hundred years" long slavery had only two colours--red and black.
And yet I will not accuse the Turks but ourselves. Neither our kings of old, nor our ancestors before the enslavement set us the example of killing kings. Rather the strangers that conquered and ruled our country set us such an example. But it is our fault for having followed an abominable example like that. I confess our sins before you, and pray: Forgive us, good brothers! Forgive us, if you can. G.o.d will not forgive us. That is the belief of our people. G.o.d is merciful, but still He does not forgive without punishment. G.o.d is righteous and sinless, and therefore He has right to punish every sin of man. But it were a monstrous pretension for men to punish every sin, being themselves sinful, very sinful. We will forgive all your mediaeval, if you will forgive us our modern sins. Remember! G.o.d will begin to "forgive us our trespa.s.ses" only at the moment when we all forgive the trespa.s.ses of all those that have sinned against us. He will forgive us then, because He will not have anything more to punish. G.o.d"s mercilessness begins when our mercifulness ends. G.o.d will rule the world by justice as long as we rule it by our mercilessness. He will rule the world by mercifulness when we forgive each other, but not before.
To forgive the sins of men means for us nothing more than to confess our own sins. To forgive the sins of men means for G.o.d nothing less than to let the events be without consequences. And it contradicts human experiences or science.
It contradicts also the experiences of our kings of old. They saw and heard of the sins punished, and they feared sin. They regarded humility and mercifulness as the greatest virtues. On the day of the "Slava,"
which means a special Serbian festival of the saint patron of the family (every Serbian family has its patron among the saints or angels which it celebrates solemnly every year, instead of celebrating their own birthdays), on this day our kings themselves served their guests at the table. It was a visible sign of their humility before the divine powers that rule human life. Besides, on every festive occasion in the royal court was placed a bountiful table with meat and drink for beggars and the most abject poor. The king was obliged by his Christian conscience and even by national tradition to be merciful. How the people regarded the kings is clear from popular sayings like these:
Every king is from G.o.d. If a king is generous he is from G.o.d, as a king should be from G.o.d. If a king is narrow and selfish he is from G.o.d, as a monkey is from G.o.d.
A wise king speaks three times to G.o.d and only once to the people. A foolish king speaks three times to the people and only once to G.o.d.
Speaking to G.o.d a wise king thinks always of his people, and speaking to the people he always thinks of G.o.d. A foolish king thinks of himself always, whether he speaks to G.o.d or to the people.
Every king has a crown, but every kingly crown stands not on a kingly head.
A gipsy asked a king: Of how much value are your riches? The king replied: Not more than your freedom.
The smile of the king is medicine for a poor man, the laugh of the king is an offence for the mourning one.
A king who fears G.o.d has pity for the people, but a king who fears the people has pity for himself.
The face of a good king lends splendour to his crown, and the crown of a bad king lends splendour to his face.
The sins of the people can only sooner bring the king before G.o.d, but the sins of the king can push the people to Satan"s house.
The belief of our kings was the same belief which Saint Sava preached, their hopes were his hopes. G.o.d is the eternal and powerful king of the world; Christ is the way of salvation from sin; good must be in the end victorious over evil. That was the belief and hope of our kings. Was it not likewise the belief and hope of King Ethelbert, of Saint Oswald and Edward the Confessor? Did not Richard the Lion-hearted struggle for the same belief and hope in Palestine, which was at his time as far as a voyage around this planet to-day? Is not this same belief and hope the corner stone of Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul"s, of this church and of every church on this island, and of every great and beautiful deed that you inherited from your ancestors?
Yet the belief and hopes of our kings were never different from the
BELIEF AND HOPES OF THE SERBIAN PEOPLE.
The Serbian people have shown their individuality only in the dark time of their slavery. The saint and the heroic kings died, but their souls lived still in the hearts of their people, in the white churches they built among the green mountains, in their deeds of mercifulness and repentance. The enslaved people were conscious that there were no more kings of their own who represented all that was the best in the Serbian soul, and that they, the people, have now themselves to represent the Serbian name, belief and hopes before G.o.d and their enemies. And they have done it.
At the time when Columbus sailed over the seas to find a new continent in the name of the most Christian King of Spain, the Serbian suffering for the Christian religion had already begun.
At the time when the famous English thinker Thomas More wrote _Utopia_, preaching brotherhood among men based upon religious and political freedom, the Serbs stood there without any shadow of religious and political freedom, dreaming of and singing about the human brotherhood founded only on the ruins of both tyranny and slavery.
At the time when the great Shakespeare wrote his tragedies in ink, the Serbs wrote theirs in blood.
At the time when Cromwell fought in the name of the Bible for the domestic freedom of Parliament, the Serbian leaders gathered in the lonely forests to tell each other of the crimes that they saw defiling the Cross, to confess to each other their cruel sufferings and to encourage each other to live.
At the time when Milton wrote _Paradise Lost_, the Serbs felt more than anybody in the world the loss of Paradise.
At the time when Livingstone went to dark Africa with the light of human civilisation, Serbia was ruled by darker powers even than Central Africa.
At the time when the great English philosopher Locke wrote his famous book on the education of men, the people of Serbia had no schools and no teachers at all; they educated themselves by the memories of the great deeds of the heroes of the past, by looking at their kings" churches, and by glorifying a death for justice and a life of suffering.
At the time when Adam Smith wrote his famous work, _The Wealth of Nations_, the Serbian nation possessed only one form of wealth, and that was the inward wealth of the glorious inheritance of strong belief and of bright hopes. All other forms of wealth that it saw around in the large world, including its own physical life, belonged not to it but to its enemies.
At the time when your learned priests and bishops discussed the subtle theological questions of the relations between time and eternity, between justice and forgiveness, between the Son and the Holy Ghost, between transcendence and omnipresence, our priests and patriarchs had to defend the religion of the Cross from the aggressive Crescent, and to protect the lives of the oppressed, and to lead and inspire the souls of their flock. I think both your and our priests did their duty according to the time and circ.u.mstances under which they lived and worked.
"FOR CROSS AND FREEDOM"
has been our national motto. It is written on our flag and in the hearts of each of us. Our motto never was "For existence" or "For vital interests." That was an unknown form of language to our kings of old, and that is still a language very strange for our ears to hear to-day.
We never fought indeed solely for a poor existence in this world. We fought always rather for the ideal contentment of this terrestrial existence. We fought not for life only, but for what makes one"s life worth living--"For Cross and Freedom!"
The Cross is mentioned first, and then Freedom. Why?
Because the Cross of Christ is the condition of a real freedom. Or, because the Cross is for G.o.d"s sake and our freedom is for our sake. We should fight for G.o.d"s sake first and then for our own. That was the idea. Or, because Cross and Freedom are two words for the same thing.
The religion of the Cross involves Freedom, and real Freedom is to be found only in the religion of the Cross.
"For Cross and Freedom!"
A Serbian proverb says:
The Cross shines better in the heart and the Crescent in the hand.
Another:
Why are there so many Mohammedans in the world? Because the Crescent pays every day during life to its followers, and the Cross pays only after death.
Have confidence in Christ and follow him even into the house of the Devil, because He knows the way out.
Twelve poor apostles did more good to man than the twelve richest sultans.
In vain you will ask from G.o.d any good without suffering. For suffering is the very heart of every good, of glory, and of pleasure as well.
Every drop of Christ"s innocent blood must be paid for by a lake of men"s blood.
It is better to die for the Cross than to live against the Cross.
When you fight for Freedom you are helping every slave in the world, not only yourself.
Freedom is an atmosphere which makes the sun brighter, and the air clearer, and the honey sweeter.
To die for the Cross and Freedom means two lives and no death.
A wolf never can so badly enslave a fellow-wolf as a man can enslave a fellow-man.
It is not easier to live in freedom than to fight for freedom. One must fight for freedom as an archangel, but one must live in freedom as a saint.