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 circumstances 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 God's sake and our freedom is for our sake. We should fight for God'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!"