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 Nemania, the founder of a dynasty which ruled in Serbia for nearly 300 years, had heard tales and songs about the English king with the lion's heart, and had helped the same cause, the cause of the Crusades, very much. His son, Saint Sava, organised the Christian Church wonderfully, and wonderfully he inspired the educational and scholarly work in the state created by his father. This Saint Sava, the Archbishop of Serbia, after he had travelled all over Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria, preaching the Gospel of the Son of God, died in Bulgaria. His body was transferred to and buried in a monastery in Herzegovina. Afterwards, in times of national hardships and slavery, great pilgrimages took place to the grave of the Saint, which became the comforting and inspiring centre for the oppressed nation; the Turks destroyed the tomb, carried the body over to Belgrade and burnt it, in order to lessen the Serbian national and religious enthusiasm. The result was just the contrary. On the very same place where Saint Sava's body was burnt there is now a Saint Sava's chapel; close to this chapel a new Saint Sava's seminary

is to be erected, and also Saint Sava's cathedral of Belgrade. And over all there is an acknowledged protection of Saint Sava by all the Serbian churches and schools, and a unifying spirit of Saint Sava for all the Serbian nation.

Saint Sava's belief was the same as the belief of Saint Patrick and Saint Augustine. His hopes were the same as theirs too. He believed in the one saving Gospel of Christ, as they did. He hoped men could be educated by this divine Gospel, to be heroic in suffering and pure and holy in the enjoyments of life, just as the great saints of this island doubtless hoped and worked.

THE BELIEF AND HOPES OF THE SERBIAN KINGS

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 God. They built beautiful churches and monasteries in the towns and forests. They strove always to build the "Houses of God" 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 God 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 God" 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 bloody 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