eenth year, when I for the first time
was told of what a spiritual work and of what an immortal glory this
place has been the home. I dreamed a beautiful dream of hope to come
here silently, to let every man, every house and every brick of the
houses silently teach me, and, after having learned many fair and useful
things, to return silently and thankfully home. Unfortunately I cannot
now be a silent and contemplative pupil in this place, as I desired to
be, but I must speak, forced by the time in which we are living and
suffering. I will speak in order not to teach you, but to thank you. And
I have to thank you much in the name of the Serbian nation and in my own
name.

I thank you that you are so mindful of Serbia, of a poor and suffering
country that failed so much in many respects, but never failed in
admiration of the English character and civilisation. From central
European civilisation we received a small light and a great shadow. From
English civilisation we got--I dare say it--the light only. There is no
doubt that English civilisation, being a great light, must have its
shadow also, but our eyes, blinded by the great light, did not see the
dark side of this light.

I thank you that you gave us Shakespeare, who is the second Bible for
the world; and Milton the divine, and Newton and Herschel, the friends
of the stars; and Wellington and Nelson, the fearless conquerors of the
ambitious tyrant of the world; and Stephenson, the great inventor of the
railway and the great annihilator of distance between man and man; and
Carlyle, the enthusiastic apostle of work and hope; and Dickens, the
advocate of the humble and poor; and Darwin, the ingenious revealer of
brotherly unity of man and nature; and Ruskin, the splendid interpreter
of beauty and truth; and Gladstone, the most accomplished type of a
humane statesman; and Bishop Westcott and Cardinal Newman, the
illuminated brains and warm hearts. No, I never will finish if I
undertake to enumerate all the illustrious names which are known in
Serbia as well as in England, and which would be preserved in their
integrity in Serbia even if this island should sink under the waters.

I have to thank you for many sacrifices that the people of this country
have made for Serbia during the present world-struggle. Many of the
English nurses and doctors died in Serbia in trying courageously to save
Serbian lives in the time of typhus-devastation. They lost their own
lives saving