A few hundred yards beyond our camp, four thousand newly dug graves, containing typhus victims, testified to the virulence of this one disease in this one town. With curious ingenuity, the typhus fiend stepped in to carry on the destruction of human life, during the interlude when the fighting fiend was in abeyance. Is it a wonder that the Serbian peasant forgets to see the hand of God in all his suffering? For many centuries the hand of the Turk has been too plainly the direct cause of his tragedies. There has been no desire to seek for further causes. Even those of us who have made it our business to search diligently for God, have not always found Him; but perhaps we are like the players in "hunt the thimble" game, we cannot find God, because He is in too conspicuous a place--in our own hearts. But for centuries, the salvation of the Serbian peasant has been working itself out on larger lines than those of a narrow theology; the struggle of his nation has been for that which is the basis of Christian faith--for Freedom. For the outer frills, the rituals of that faith, the Serbian peasant has had no time. With us, in England, this situation is reversed. We have had plenty of time to attend to the frills, and have perhaps lost sight of that which is the basis of our common faith. It is undoubtedly true that in Serbia, religion, if by religion is meant theological doctrine, and adherence to ritual, has little hold upon the people. But during centuries of oppression, religious teaching has been necessarily confined to the monks, and they, to avoid persecution, have been obliged to seclude themselves amongst the mountains. And so it has come about, as usual, that the praying men have been content with prayer, and the men of action with action. Neither of them has perceived that a combination of prayer, and action, is necessary for the fulfilment of divine destiny. CHAPTER VII Amongst the Serbian soldiers many primitive notions still prevailed. One day, after one of the big thunder-storms which were frequent during the spring and summer months, I asked the men in one of the wards, what was their idea of the origin of thunder? "God must have something to do in Heaven," replied one man. "We work on earth and He must work above, so He makes thunder and lightning. He mustn't sit up there and do nothing." "No, no," answered another; "it is not God that makes thunder, it's St. Ilyia; it's he who works the thunder and lightning."