escription or comment, which spaces I have since then filled in.

"Lords of the National Council, Archbishop, Vladika, Lords of the Council
of Justice and of National Law, Archimandrites, and my brothers all, I
have, since I left you, held in the solitude of the forest counsel with
myself--and with God; and He, in His gracious wisdom, has led my thinking
to that conclusion which was from the first moment of knowledge of your
intent presaged in my heart. Brothers, you know--or else a long life has
been spent in vain--that my heart and mind are all for the nation--my
experience, my life, my handjar. And when all is for her, why should I
shrink to exercise on her behalf my riper judgment though the same should
have to combat my own ambition? For ten centuries my race has not failed
in its duty. Ages ago the men of that time trusted in the hands of my
ancestors the Kingship, even as now you, their children, trust me. But
to me it would be base to betray that trust, even by the smallest tittle.
That would I do were I to take the honour of the crown which you have
tendered to me, so long as there is another more worthy to wear it. Were
there none other, I should place myself in your hands, and yield myself
over to blind obedience of your desires. But such an one there is; dear
to you already by his own deeds, now doubly dear to me, since he is my
son by my daughter's love. He is young, whereas I am old. He is strong
and brave and true; but my days of the usefulness of strength and bravery
are over. For myself, I have long contemplated as the crown of my later
years a quiet life in one of our monasteries, where I can still watch the
whirl of the world around us on your behalf, and be a counsellor of
younger men of more active minds. Brothers, we are entering on stirring
times. I can see the signs of their coming all around us. North and
South--the Old Order and the New, are about to clash, and we lie between
the opposing forces. True it is that the Turk, after warring for a
thousand years, is fading into insignificance. But from the North where
conquests spring, have crept towards our Balkans the men of a mightier
composite Power. Their march has been steady; and as they came, they
fortified every step of the way. Now they are hard upon us, and are
already beginning to swallow up the regions that we have helped to win
from the dominion of Mahound. The Austrian is at our very gates. Beaten
back by the Irredenti