To come to Canterbury, to visit this Sion of the Church of England, that
has been my dream since my fourteenth 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 ours, and I hope in losing their lives for their suffering
neighbours they have found better ones. Their work will never be
forgotten and their tombs will be respected as relics among us Serbs.
Besides, Great Britain also sent military help for Serbia. It was
dictated to Great Britain by the highest strategic reasons to send
troops to Serbia, to the Danube, in order to stop the Germans there, to
hinder their junction with the Bulgars, to annihilate all their plans
and dreams regarding the East, to defend Serbia not only as Serbia, but
as the gate of Egypt and India, and so to protect in the proper place
and in the most efficacious manner her oriental Dominions. But seemingly
England sent her troops to Serbia more to protect her honour than her
Dominions, more to help Serbia than to defend Egypt and India. The
number of these troops and the time when they arrived in Serbia
indicate that. Hundreds of miles the Serbs had been driven back by the
enemy before the British forces reached the Serbo-Greek frontier. But
still they reached the Serbian land, they fought on Serbian soil and
shed their noble blood defending that soil. Serbia will rather forget
herself than the English lives sacrificed for her in such a catastrophic
moment of her history.
England is THE GREATEST EMPIRE OF THE WORLD, not only at the present
time, but since the beginning of human history. Neither the artificial
combination of Alexander of Macedonia nor the ancient Roman Empire,
neither Spain of Charles V. nor Napoleon's ephemeral dominion were
nearly so great as the British Empire of to-day. Never has a nation
possessed so much sea and so much land as the British. This wonderful
Empire includes people of every race, countries of every climate, human
societies of every degree of civilisation, almost all kinds of minerals,
plants and animals, lakes and rivers, mountains and forests. The most
ancient civilisations of Egypt, India and the Mediterranean Islands are
brought together in conjunction under the same rule as the new worlds,
like South Africa, Canada and Australasia. The communication between the
zones of the everlasting snow and those of the everlasting hot sun is
established in perfection. The countries and peoples which were for
thousands of years in contact with each other only through dreams are
now in real contact through business, trade, science, art, and through
common sufferings and hopes.
Still it might be asked: Has such a great body indeed an aim?
Short-sighted people, who are ready at once with a reply on any
question, will say: The only aim of this great Empire is the
exploitation of every country and every body by the English with the
pretext of civilisation. So may think some English too. What can we say
about THE AIM OF THE GREATEST EMPIRE? The truth is that the real aim of
this Empire is larger than the selfishness of any person or of any
nation. The real aim is:
_First_, to exchange the material products of the countries, and so to
create a greater comfort for the people that live in them. In the
wildest islands in the Pacific you can find--I will mention only little
things--the same fine sofas, fireplaces, draperies, modern kitchens,
piano and library, electric light and cablegrams, as in London. And in
foggy and smoky London you can have all the African fruits, Australian
wine and wool, Canadian metals and wood, Indian beasts and African
ivory.
_Second_, to exchange the spiritual good of races and nations. The
wisdom of the world is not concentrated in the brains of any single
nation. Every nation has some original experiences of its own about this
life. The Eskimos have certainly something new to say to the people from
the plains of the Ganges and the Nile. And these people, these
descendants, of Buddha and Rameses, as well as the descendants of Moses
and Hamurrabai, have things to say that never were thought possible in
the countries of perpetual snow and ice in Northern Canada. Such is of
the greatest profit for science, religion, ethics, sociology, art.
Darwin and Spencer, with their immense scientific experiences, were
possible only in such a world-Empire as the English. The words of
Tagore, the Indian thinker, can be heard to-day without great delay on
the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as in India. When a genius is born in
New Zealand his message reaches the world, and his glory cannot be
concealed in the southern hemisphere.
_Third_: this Empire is an experiment in the realisation of human
brotherhood. I repeat, through the medium of this Empire man is brought
near to man, and nation to nation, and race to race. It was very
difficult in the ancient Roman Empire to become _civis Romanus_, because
this Empire was founded upon the Pagan philosophy of lords and
servants. It is, on the contrary, very easy in the British Empire of
to-day to become a British citizen, because the British Empire is
founded upon the Christian philosophy of democratic equality and
brotherhood. All is not accomplished, but I say it is an experiment, and
a good one; a prophecy, and a hopeful one.
_Fourth_: Great Britain is destined by Providence to be a great educator
of nations. That is her part in history. She has democracy and
tradition--two things that are considered everywhere as incongruous--and
therefore she is capable of understanding everybody and of teaching and
leading everybody. She is the nurse for the sick people of the East; she
is the schoolmaster for the rough people of the wild isolated islands;
she is the tamer of the cannibals and the guide of the civilised; she
inspires, vivifies, unites and guides; she equalises; she Christianises.