Serbia has sinned, Serbia has prayed. If you put on one side of the
scales Serbia's sins and on the other Serbia's sufferings and prayers, I
am sure the latter will send the balance down.
Again I must come back to the Serbian village. Prayer is there
considered not only as an epilogue to a sin but as a daily necessity.
The first duty after one's ablution in the morning is prayer. That is a
sanctified custom. Many songs on our national hero, Marko, begin as
follows:
"Marko got up early in the morning,
Washed his face and prayed to God."
And all the songs begin, I repeat it, with the verse:
"Dear God, we are thankful to Thee for all."
But not only the songs begin with prayer, every work and every pleasure
begins with prayer as well, every day and every night, every feast,
every rest and every journey. This custom has been partly broken and
abandoned only in the towns under the influence of the central European
materialistic civilisation. In the villages unbelief is unknown. In our
green fields, under our dark-blue heaven, in our little white houses and
wooden cottages, on the banks of our murmuring brooks and magnificent
rivers, atheism is unknown. Every family in a house is regarded as a
little religious community. The head of the family presides over this
community and prays with it. When I tell you that, I tell you my
personal experience. I was born in a village, in a family of forty-five
members. We prayed together every Saturday, after the weekly work was
over. In the evening my grandfather, the head of the family, called us
to prayer. We had no chapel in the house. In bad weather we prayed in
the house, in fine weather out of doors, in the yard. The starry heaven
served as our temple, the moon as our guardian, the silent breath of the
surrounding nature as our inspiration. My grandfather took a chalice
with fire and incense, and sprinkled every one of us. Then he came
forward, stood before us and bowed deeply, and his example was followed
by us all. Then began a silent prayer, interrupted only here and there
by a sighing or by some whispering voice. We crossed ourselves and
prayed, looking to the earth and looking to the stars. The prayer ended
again with deep bowing and with a loud Amen.
When I recall this prayer in my memory, I feel more piety, more humility
and more comfort than I ever felt in any of the big cathedrals in either
hemisphere where I have had the opportunity of praying. This prayer of
the Serbian peasants, beautiful in its simplicity and touching in its
sincerity, survived generation after generation, and has been victorious
over all crimes that the strangers of the Asiatic or of the European
faith have committed on us. Our tenacious and incessant prayer is an
evident sign of our tenacious and unbroken hope. We pray because we
hope; we hope still more after we have prayed.
Everything can be disturbed in Serbia except prayer. The invasion of the
Kaiser's troops in Serbia disturbed and perturbed everything in Serbia,
but the prayer of the Serbian people still continues. Enslaved in
Serbia, dispersed as the refugees are all over the world, we pray to the
God of Justice, now as always. Our prayer means our hope. The Kaiser's
subjects and the Bulgarian slaves can kill everything in Serbia--and the
purpose of their coming into Serbia is killing--but they never can kill
our hope. Martyred Serbia, your loyal ally, oh noble sons and daughters
of Great Britain, is now silent and powerless. Enemies and friends can
now laugh her to scorn. She will remain silent. I am sure you will
respect this silence of the Crucified. I am sure everyone of you will
do his best to redeem Serbia. Well, Serbia can now give, after all, her
cause to God and can wait the end hopefully. She can now say to the
Kaiser, her conqueror and lord, the words of one of your great poets:
"I have lost, you have won this hazard yet perchance
My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain
When time and God give judgement."
A C Swinburne (_Faliero_).