DEDICATION OF THE MEMORIAL

Here is the account of the dedication ceremony detailed in the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald on Saturday 30 October 1920

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Morland War Memorial

Dedication Ceremony

Dean of Carlisle on the Life After Death

Morland Parish has erected war memorials to its 16 fallen soldiers. The Cross is inscribed in red sandstone and a three tier base in the churchyard and mural tablet on the north wall of the church. - The parishioners assembled in large numbers on Sunday night to take part in the dedication service by the Dean of Carlisle. The cross has been erected on the highest portion of the churchyard close to the road, so that it is a prominent feature in the village. On the side nearest the church a laurel wreath has been carved above the words “These have died that we might live.” The inscription facing the road reads

“This monument has been erected by the inhabitants of Morland, Newby, Kings Meaburn and Sleagill to the glory of God and in sacred memory of the fallen brave who went from this parish to the great War 1914 to 1918.

Sgt. Robert Bellas, Private John Briggs, Private John Brown, Private F. W. Dent, Cpl Cornelius Hayhurst, Seargent Stephen Hayhurst, Seaman John James, Private William James, Private Lowther L Kitchen, Major Ronald A. Markham, Private Thomas Ostle, Second-Lieutenant Joseph Powley, Cpl. John P Regan, Private Matthew Shaw, Private John Threlkeld, Private Tom Wilkinson. For God, for King, and for country.”

The mural tablet is of exquisite workmanship it is of bronze and inside a border of oakleaves and acorns is an inscription similar to that on the cross, surmounted by a representation of the arms of Westmorland.

The harvest festival was also being celebrated, and much taste has been displayed in the decoration of the church. At the morning service Canon Hassell, Dalemain, was the preacher, and a children's service was held in the afternoon. As stated there was a crowded congregation in the evening, the ordinarily seating capacity of the church being quite insufficient to accommodate all who sought admission. The congregation included Lady Bagot, The Vicarage; Lord Hothfield and the Hon. J.S.R. Tufton, Appleby Castle. The service opened with the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” during which a procession was formed to the churchyard for the dedication of the cross. This was headed by the churchwardens Messrs. F.R. Markham, R. Ewin, R. Lowis and R. Cowin, followed by the choir, the vicar (the Rev. S. Swann), the Dean, Lord Hothfield, the relatives of the fallen, and the general congregation. A portion of Scripture was read by Mr. Markam, after which Dr. Rashdell dedicated the cross. “Through the night of doubt and sorrow” was sung as the recession of hymn, and the congregation having reassembled in church the ordinary service was conducted by the vicar. The lessons were read by Mr J. Camplin and Mr T. Ousby, representing the Wesleyan Church, and while the anthem, “ Fear not O Lord” was being sung by the choir, Lord Hothfield, the Dean and the vicar proceeded to the tablet. Lord Hothfield drew aside the Union Jack with which it had been covered and in doing so said that the tablet was a record of those who came forward at a most critical time in the history of their country; and although the issue was at one time in the balance, the old adage that “right is might” was eventually vindicated.

The names on that tablet were those who gave their lives for their country in that righteous cause, and in aid of humanity against the barbarity of their opponents. 

He had pleasure in unveiling the tablet and thanked them for giving him the privilege of so doing.

The vicar having read the names, the Dean dedicated the tablet. May their example he said, inspire others to courage in the great war against evil; may their memory ever burn brightly in those who here or elsewhere remember their deeds.

The Dean based his sermon on Wisdom iii 1-9. “ The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God.” He referred at the outset to the national position at the outbreak of war. Undoubtedly they were unprepared and some even held that they were degenerate and incapable of making great sacrifices, while others thought they were too fundamentally divided by class divisions and party spirit for a great united national effort. They had almost forgotten how long it took convince all sections of the nation that the struggle that was forced upon them was necessary, not merely for the maintenance of their national independence and honour, but in the higher interest of humanity at large. But the conversion of the nation, though slow, was thorough.

Slowly, but surely, the conviction's spread that that was a holy cause which demanded of every individual whatever sacrifices were required to achieve their object. He did not think that it could be fairly said that any class as a whole failed to make the response which was demanded of it, and the sacrifices and efforts had been crowned with magnificent success, success more tremendous than the most sober thinkers and observers of one time ventured to hope for. On the whole the struggle was conducted in a way which made them proud of their nation. It was a struggle which their children and grandchildren would look back upon as an heroic period in the history of the race, and one which they humbly hoped would mark the beginning of a new and happier era in the history of the world - a new era even for nations who for a long time to come would have to reap the bitter fruits which had been sown by policy of grasping militarism and undue subservience which made a religion of the forces of brutality and aggression.

But they were not met chiefly to celebrate their victory or even to express their thankfulness to God for the blessing bestowed upon their national effort. They were thinking of the tremendous cost at which the victory was won, of which every city and every village had borne its share. They were commemorating the 16 man of that village who had laid down their lives, and he would like to say a few words about the way in which they ought to think about those lost friends.

They believed in immortality because they believed in God. Given a hope of a future and better hereafter they could understand that the trials, troubles and struggles of life, and the appalling losses of the late war, were but part of the discipline and education of the human soul for its true blessedness. Life no doubt meant a desire that those whom they loved should be happy, but there was something better and higher in the world than happiness; goodness, character and love were things better worth having than mere pleasure.

All the suffering of the terrible war could be justified and explained if they were necessary means of educating human souls for a life in which happiness, knowledge and goodness so imperfectly realised here, might receive a richer and fuller fulfilment. It would be difficult indeed to understand how a God of mercy and of love could have made a world in which these splendid sacrifices should bear no fruits for those who made them. He wished to plead for a simple and more natural and less unreal way of believing about the after-life than they sometimes heard. It used to be commonly supposed that the departed were sharply and suddenly divided into two classes, and only two. One went immediately to a heaven of absolute bliss while for the other was reserved an endless future of purposeless irredeemable suffering which they could not really believe the worst man could have deserved .

That way of thinking did not correspond with all they observed of human life and character in this life. It was impossible to reconcile it with their belief in their love of God. Human character ************ two sharply opposed classes ****** one all good and one all bad. There was some good and some evil in most men, and the victory of the good over the evil was commonly a slow and gradual process. Few men that died were already fit for the life of the saints. He imagined there were few people who in their heart of hearts really looked on the matter in that way and there was certainly nothing in the Bible which compelled them to do so.There was another way of thinking which was now becoming rather common. It was that all men, no matter how they may have lived, will immediately after death go straight to heaven and be transformed all at once into perfect saints. This way of thinking was surely as unreal and unnatural as the other. The greater value of faith in a future lay in the fact that it gave meaning to this life which no other view of the world could give. It enabled them to **********recovery *******