The Chapel of St. Columba
St. Columba was born in County Donegal, Ireland, in 521, of royal blood. After study and religious work in Ireland, he set out in 563 with twelve disciples and planted upon the Island of Iona, on the west coast of Scotland, which he received from his kinsman Conal, King of Scots, a monastery which, from the 6th to the 8th centuries, was second to hardly any other in Great Britain. From it was conducted a wonderful missionary work in Scotland, Ireland, the north of England, and small adjacent islands. Many miracles are attributed to him, and he was accredited with power to subdue not only wild tribes of men but also the beasts of the wilderness ([see p. 32]). He died in 597, and his body was buried at Iona, which is regarded as one of the great shrines of Christianity in Great Britain. The Memorial Day for St. Columba is kept on June 9.
The Chapel of St. Columba, ([17 on plan]), designed by Messrs. Heins & LaFarge, is in the Norman style of Architecture. It is 50 feet long and 27 wide, seats 100 persons, and cost about $150,000. The interior walls are of Minnesota dolomite, separated from a base course of polished Mohegan granite by a moulding of yellow Verona marble. The pavement is a fine grained gray stone from Illinois. The semi-circular arched window heads, and particularly the six large cylindrical pillars diversified by spiral and diaper patterns, convey the idea of the Norman style which one sees exemplified on a larger scale in Durham Cathedral and other churches of that period in England. The vaulting over the Sanctuary is lined with gold mosaic, upon which appear black and white Celtic crosses. The lectern, communion rail, Glastonbury chairs, and other wood work of the Sanctuary were designed by Mr. Charles R. Lamb and made by J. & R. Lamb of New York. They are carved in low relief with ornament expressive of English Gothic feeling. The lectern shows a composition of three figures: Christ in the center, between John the Baptist, his Forerunner, and St. John the Divine, namesake of the Cathedral, who closes the biblical record with the Book of Revelation. The Altar, of cream colored Italian marble, is in the form of a table supported by marble pillars. It has no Reredos. The Sanctuary Windows, three in number, were made by Messrs. Clayton & Bell of London. In the central light of the window above the Altar is represented the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist, and in the side lights are St. John with cup (left), and St. Paul with sword, (right.) In the bottom of the three lights are the four symbols previously explained ([p. 74]), namely, the ΙΗϹ, the Alpha, the Omega, and the Chi Rho. The windows on either side of the middle window are in grisaille, copied from the famous lancet windows called the Five Sisters in the North Transept of York Cathedral, although these windows have only two lights each instead of five. The six wonderfully graceful seven-branched Candelabra, after Donatello, were brought from Italy by Mr. George Gordon King. Turning toward the entrance, in which is a wrought iron Screen in the Spanish style, designed by Mr. Samuel Yellen and made by the Industrial Ornamental Iron Works of Philadelphia, Penn., one sees an extremely interesting feature in the Statues by Mr. Gutzon Borglum of representatives of the successive stages of the development of Christianity in England, which stand in the niches between the clustered columns at the sides of the great entrance archway.[42]
The figures, five on each side, one above the other, and corresponding to as many on the Ambulatory side,—twenty in all,—are in the following relative positions, it being understood that the left side as seen from the chapel is the same as the right side as seen from the Ambulatory.
| Seen from Chapel. | |
| Left. | Right. |
St. Aidan | St. Augustine |
St. Anselm | King Alfred |
Thomas Cranmer | William of Wykeham |
Joseph Butler | Jeremy Taylor |
John Keble | Reginald Heber |
| Seen from Ambulatory. | |
| Left. | Right. |
St. Alban | Theodore of Tarsus |
The Venerable Bede | Stephen Langton |
John Wyckliffe | Matthew Parker |
Richard Hooker | George Berkeley |
John Wesley | Frederic Denison Maurice |
The Cathedral has in its possession a Stone from the Cathedral, or Church of St. Mary (dating from the 13th-16th centuries) on the Island of Iona, which may fittingly be placed in this chapel at some future time.
Upon the wall of the chapel is inscribed:
“Chapel ‖ of ‖ Saint Columba ‖ To the Glory of God ‖ and ‖ in Loving Memory of ‖ Mary Leroy King ‖ The Gift of Her Mother ‖ Mary Augusta King ‖ Consecrated ‖ April 27th, 1911.”
The Chapel of St. Boniface
St. Boniface, whose original name was Winifred, was born in Devonshire, England, about the year 680. He entered a Benedictine monastery at the age of 13, learned rhetoric, history and theology, and became a priest at the age of 30. At a time when England and Ireland were sending missionaries to the heathen parts of Europe, Winifred was authorized by Pope Gregory II. to preach the Gospel to the tribes of Germany, and he is called the Apostle of Germany. While engaged in this work, Gregory made him a Bishop and gave him the name of Bonifacius, or Boniface, which means Doer of Good. The Bishoprics of Ratisbon, Erfurt, Paderborn, Wurzburg, Eichstadt, Salzburg, and several others, owe their establishment to his efforts. In 746 he was made Archbishop of Mainz. In 755, while carrying on his work in Dokkum, in West Friesland, he and his congregation of converts there were slain by a mob of armed heathen. His remains are buried in the famous abbey of Fulda, which he founded. In art, he is depicted holding a book pierced by a sword, referring to the manner of his death. The Memorial Day for St. Boniface is kept on June 5.