and our singing stopped. Under the Turks the Serbian people sang. You can find in the British Museum ten big volumes of the Serbian national poetry which was composed during the time of the Turkish rule in Serbia. This rule was very hard and very dark indeed, but still we considered ourselves as the champions of the Cross against the Crescent, and we imagined that we should be the bulwark of Christian Europe, i.e. of Central Europe in the first place. Therefore we endured the struggle with the Turks, singing and hoping. And now--the two _Christian_ Kaisers, with a fox from Sofia, have crushed Serbia more completely than she ever was crushed by the Turks. "Come back to your homes and your customs," so the Kaiser William invited the Serbian refugees. "To your customs!" But, oh _illustrissime Caesar,_ we could reply, our first and best custom is to sing. Tell us, how we could sing now? You know, oh Kaiser, because you preached the Bible also, you must know the Biblical complaints of the Israel of old: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" You are now playing a real Babylonian role towards us Serbs, i.e. towards a people who fought for the Cross, who sang freedom and who were crucified for justice. You are not a better man than any peasant from the Serbian villages. Do you want a proof? The Serbian peasant can sing, and you cannot. You cannot sing, not because of your diseased throat, but because of your evil conscience. You stopped the singing in a country of songs, oh ill majesty! How could we now sing our songs while our homes are transformed into empty caves? How could we sing, seeing our bread in strangers' hands and cold stones in ours? How could we sing now, when all our past protests against you and all our dead are disturbed in their graves? You covered our country with sins and crimes, and it is not our custom to sing of sins and crimes, but of virtues. When will you show us your virtues? You have shown us until now only your iron and fire, your brutality and brutality, and again brutality and brutality,--and, did I say?--iron and fire. That is the essence of your religion and science, of your soul and glory. We will despise all that you brought into our country. Let us be silent, Sire, and you may continue to show your Mephistophelean civilisation, and after you have crushed all those who are weaker and smaller than you, Sire, open your lips and preach upon their ruin to your admirers: _cantate Domino!_ But we will not sing after our custom of old in your presence. We prefer to be silent and to wait for God's judgment. The Hidden Moral Treasures of the Serbian people are now shining, as always, throughout all the times of darkness and suffering.