One Minute Each Night

During the Second World War, W. Tudor Pole, an English author, adventurer, and businessman, campaigned for what came to be called "The Big Ben Silent Minute." The story of its origin is a remarkable one. It begins not during the Second World War, however, but the First World War. In early December 1917, in the mountains around Jerusalem, two British army officers were discussing the war and its probable aftermath on the eve of a battle. One of them, in a premonition of his death, requested his fellow officer to remember him and the millions of others who would die during the war: "You will survive and live to see a greater and more vital conflict fought out in every continent and ocean and in the air. When that time comes, remember us. You will still have time as your servant. Lend us a moment of it [your time] every day and through your silence give us our opportunity. The power of silence is greater than you know." The following day the speaker, as he had foretold, was killed.

His companion, Major Wellesley Tudor Pole, never forgot his comrade’s last request and at the outbreak of the Second World War campaigned tirelessly to implement a daily observance of silent prayer.

Members of the so-called ‘Big Ben Movement’, with the support of Winston Churchill, took up Mr. Pole's cause and successfully campaigned for the reinstatement of the broadcast of Big Ben’s chimes at 9 p.m. on the BBC as an appropriate observance. The chimes had been replaced by the Greenwich Time Signal at the outbreak of the war. The nine o’clock chimes, which lasted a minute, were publicized as a "Minute of Silent Prayer and Rededication" prior to the first airing on Armistice Sunday, November 10, 1940. The "Big Ben Silent Minute" became a source of inspiration throughout the British empire.

There is now a group of people organizing something similar here in the United States. They would ask that we stop whatever it is that we are doing each evening at 9 p.m. and say a silent prayer for those leading this nation as well as those going to the polls, or voting by absentee ballot, or in any way wielding influence upon the governing bodies of this great nation. Pray for their guidance and clarity of thought. Pray for courage to do that which is difficult but is right. For we will see a "greater … conflict fought out in every continent." Let us remember them who have given us this land and this time. Let us be as noble and courageous as they. For we do still have time as our servant. Let us lend a moment of that time every day and through our silent prayer give them tribute remembering the words of the Abraham Lincoln:

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated … to the unfinished work which they who fought … have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be … dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

One minute out of every day is so little to ask.