Serbia in Light and Darkness | Page 7

My illustrious chairman, the Most Reverend Archbishop of Canterbury,
wrote recently in one of his books: "We are everywhere trying in these
later years to understand and to alleviate human sorrow." [2] Yes, you
are. We Serbians feel your sorrows too. "To understand and to alleviate
human sorrow." That is the divine purpose of a humane civilisation.
That is the final aim of our terrestrial education--to understand each
other, and to support each other.
Do you think that it is difficult for a rich nation as well as for a rich
man to come into the kingdom of Heaven? I am a little embarrassed
seeing rich England now coming into this kingdom. Yet she is coming
into the kingdom of God, not because she is rich, but because she being
powerful humiliated herself, took the cross and went to suffer for the
poor and sorely stricken in this world. She humiliated herself going to
support Belgium; she humiliates herself hurrying to support Serbia; she

humiliates herself mourning so much for Armenia. But her humiliation
is the best proof of her true Christianity, as her fighting and suffering of
to-day is the very fighting and suffering for Christianity. Do not be
afraid of humiliation, citizens of the greatest Empire of the world;
behold, the humiliation is the very condition of real glory and real
greatness! For more than a thousand years, from this place has been
preached the Only Son of God, whose way to Glory, Greatness and
Divinity was through painful humiliation.
Do persist and do not weary in this way,--it will bring your dear
country nearer to God. Do persist in humiliation,--it will be the most
durable foundation of a glorious young England. Do persist in
supporting oppressed and poor Serbia,--it will be rewarded hundredfold
to your children and to the children of your children. Do persist in
doing good, that is my final word to you, my enlightened brethren and
sisters. And when I say do persist in good, I repeat only what for nine
hundred years has been preached within these walls by thousands and
thousands of servants of Christ, either well-known or unknown, but all
more worthy than I am.

SERBIA FOR CROSS AND FREEDOM.
Delivered for the first time in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stroud
Green, London.
I was a citizen of a small country called Serbia, and I am still a citizen
of a great country called The Universe. In my first fatherland there is
now no other light except the brightness of tears. But in my second
fatherland there is always the splendid and silent light of the sun. My
little country is now a great tear-drop, a shining and silent tear-drop. A
gentleman from South Africa wrote to me the other day and asked
about my country--"why it is so shining"? I replied: Just because it is
now transformed into a big tear-drop, therefore it is so shining that
even you from South Africa can see its splendour. I come as an echo of
the weeping splendour of my country which is now plunged into the
worst slavery. I come as a voice beyond the grave to your famous

island, brethren and sisters, not to accuse, not to complain, but to say
by what invisible bonds my country is tied to yours. I will say at once,
plainly and simply--by common beliefs and common hopes.
At the time when Saint Patrick preached Christ's Gospel in heathen
Ireland, the Serbs were heathen as well. Their gods, with Perun at the
head, corresponded to Wothan and his divine colleagues, whose names
are recalled in your names of the days of the week still.
About the time when Saint Augustine came over here, met Queen
Bertha and baptised King Ethelbert in Saint Martin's Church in
Canterbury, the conversion of the heathen Serbs had made good
progress.
In the time of Alfred the Great, who was "the most complete
embodiment of all that is great, all that is lovable in the English
temper," as an English historian praises him so justly, the Serbs
received God's word in their own language from the Slav apostles,
Cyril and Methodius, and soon afterwards the Christian faith was
officially introduced and established among them.
In the time of the Conquest, when the Norman and Danish kings
disputed the possession of England, the Serbian provinces were fought
over by the Greek, Bulgar and Avar rulers. But the belief in Christ grew
more and more uninterruptedly.
When Richard the Lion-hearted sailed from England to the Holy Land,
not to fight for the national existence, as we to-day speak of it, but to
fight for the most unselfish and idealistic aim, for Cross and Christian
Freedom, Serbia was already opening a great epoch of physical as well
as spiritual strength. Our king