Freedom? Man is man only in living in freedom and in fighting for freedom.
Wealth? It is no virtue, and if it does not support virtue, it is a vice.
God? He is the Lord of the World and thy steady companion.
Such morals have been preached, yea, sung by our ancestors, and by ourselves. Certainly we have sinned often against these morals, but in our sins and in our virtues they have been always regarded as a standard of all that is good and beautiful.
SINNING SERBIA.
Serbia sinned and repented her sins, and again sinned. Put yourselves, gentlemen, in the chair of a judge, and I will confess to you all the sins of Serbia. Serbia sinned and suffered. Her sins have been her hell, her sufferings—her purgatory. I don't pray you to forgive Serbia, but only to compare justly her sins with her sufferings. The Serbs sinned against all the ten commandments, it is true, but still regarded the ten commandments as the standard which is better than a
nation's doings. Although the people said beautifully: "A grain of truth is better than a ton of lies," still the lie, like a parasite, had its nest in Serbia as elsewhere. Although the people said: "It is better to be blind with justice than to have eyes with injustice," still injustice had its seed, its growth and fruits among the same people. Although Cain's sin has been abhorred by the conscience of the Serbs, still this sin of taking the life of a brother has defiled the very soil of Serbia, which has been so much sanctified by the sufferings and unselfish sacrifices of her people. You will not find certainly in Serbia the refined vices which are practised in the shadow of great civilisations, but you will find quite enough great and small sins, which the Serbian conscience does not justify any more than yours.
THE SERBIAN AND THE BULGARIAN SPIRIT.
Besides, I will confess to you one great sin of the Serbian people. It is an exaggerated love for independence. It is a virtue as every honest love is a virtue, but it becomes a sin if exaggerated. It is a brilliant quality like the sunshine in the time of fighting against the common enemy, but it is a sin in peace time when organised efforts for the social welfare are required. This spirit of independence, the independence from
enemies as well as from friends, has considerably disturbed our social life and progress-during the last century. Now, by this greatest of our sins and greatest of our virtues as well, we Serbs differed chiefly from our neighbours. The people in Great Britain have been accustomed to look towards the Balkans as towards a country with one and the same spirit. This is a great mistake. There are chiefly two spirits: the Serbian and the Bulgarian, i.e. the spirit of independence and the spirit of slavery. The Serbian spirit resisted until the end stubbornly and tenaciously against the Turks conquering the Balkans five centuries ago. The Bulgarian spirit surrendered without any resistance. "The Kral of Bulgaria did not wait to be conquered, but humbly begged for mercy"; so writes an English historian.[3] The rebellious spirit of the Serbs arose first in the Balkan darkness a hundred years ago against the tyranny and the despotic wickedness of the Turkish rulers, and liberated the Serbian fatherland. The Bulgarian spirit waited until strangers came and liberated the Bulgarian country. Those strangers have been: Russians, Serbians, Roumanians and Mr. Gladstone. The Bulgarian spirit has been since 1878 under the rule of the German kings, as slavishly subordinate as it was for five hundred years