On Sunday, 10th November we held a well-attended Remembrance Service at Dunmurry and the video can be seen below. Special thanks go to John Neill for delivering Binyon’s Lines, to Jack Steers for playing the Last Post and Reveille, and to Allen Yarr for playing the organ.

In the service I make full use of the booklet For Remembrance mentioned in the previous post. Indeed this little book, particularly the contribution by the Rev R. Nicol Cross, as it is mentioned in the previous video, has already sparked a lot of responses. Along with some of the other pieces it is a poignant and very honest reflection on the situation in 1919 for those returning from the front after the Armistice.

At the time he wrote his contribution Nicol Cross was minister of Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, later he was minister of First Church, Belfast and later still Principal of Manchester College, Oxford. But from 1915 to 1919 he served as a private with the Royal Army Medical Corps. His perspective on the war was quite different from what you might otherwise have guessed.

It is a very rare book, very few copies have survived. In the 2019 issue of the Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society Alan Ruston contributed an article entitled ‘1919 – a re-evaluation of the part played by Unitarians in the First World War’. In his article he reveals that he had not previously come across the book, the copy he was sent while writing the article was the only one known to him. It certainly has not made its way into library collections. So this copy, in the Very Rev William McMIllan Library, is one of only two known copies.

One feature of For Remembrance that I didn’t mention in the first video or in the service above is that there is also a short note from the American Unitarian Association (AUA) included in the booklet. It seems to have come from a message sent out by the AUA to reurning troops and reads:

OUR GREETING AND PLEDGE

You have successfully met the challenge of the most powerful armies the world ever saw. You have shared in the most significant victory in all history. By a devotion that has won the affectionate admiration of the civilized world, you have helped to make possible a new and nobler life for humanity, and a truer brotherhood of man.

We welcome you again to our homes and our homeland. We pledge ourselves anew to the ideals for which you went forth to suffer; and because of your example we will rise to meet the duties of the new day with unwavering faith. Through our church we will unite our powers with yours in defence of the principles for which so great a price has been paid.

Your courage, cheerfulness, and fortitude will strengthen the church of your fathers.

From the Message of the American Unitarian Association

It would be interesting to know if this was the whole message of the AUA or whether they produced a book similar to For Remembrance.