t 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 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 bloody
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. God will not forgive
us. That is the belief of our people. God is merciful, but still He does
not forgive without punishment. God 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! God will begin to "forgive us our
trespasses" only at the moment when we all forgive the trespasses of all
those that have sinned against us. He will forgive us then, because He
will not have anything more to punish. God's mercilessness begins when
our mercifulness ends. God 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 God nothing less than to
let the events be without consequences. And it contradicts human
experiences or scienc