THE STAINED GLASS WINDOWS.
It remains now to deal with the stained glass of the chapel windows. The carrying out of this very important part of the chapel decoration has been entrusted to Messrs. James Powell & Sons, Whitefriars Glass Works, Tudor Street, E.C., the whole of the windows having been executed by them to designs prepared by Mr. James C. Powell, to whom warm thanks are due for the very special interest which he has so kindly taken in the work. It was decided after careful consideration to follow the style of the 15th century (late Gothic) glass, is which it was found possible in a singularly effective way to enshrine in a mass of white glass just enough colour to give richness without great loss of light. The charm of this old glass of the Perpendicular period was to be found in its more pictorial quality and in its extreme brilliancy, large masses of silvery white and golden-hued yellow glass being introduced. In the chapel windows the glass has been treated in a translucent way and every effort made to secure brilliancy by using glass of very varying thickness. The keynote to the subjects of the east window and of the three-light south window is to be found in Galatians v. 22, 23:—“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”
These windows are intended to recall that verse, and to illustrate some of the greatest instances of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The East Window.
In the two outer lower lights of the east window are St. John and St. Peter, types of love and faith, whilst in the upper or tracery lights of the window, angels bear scrolls inscribed with the Spirit’s fruits, and in the topmost lozenge-shaped light is the motto of some of the donors of the chapel, “Scuto fidei.” In the four centre lower lights are the two great scenes of the Annunciation and of the Baptism of our Lord, scenes so beautifully connected with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the words of Holy Scripture show (see Luke i. 35, and Matthew iii. 11 and 16).
The South Window.
The south window has been chosen to illustrate specially the greatest of all these fruits, “Love,” and in the lower portion thereof is depicted the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Infant Saviour in her arms, surrounded by angels, whilst in the upper lights, which are indicative of the Passion, are two angels, one bearing the Cross and the other the chalice and the Crown of Thorns. Above their heads are the Cross and the Crown of Victory, and other symbols of the Passion, and in the topmost light, the Holy Dove. Perhaps no better subject could be found to illustrate the greatest Love human and divine than the human Mother with her Divine Son, the only begotten of the Father, whom the Father in His infinite love of the world gave for man’s redemption.
The Long Lancet.
For the long lancet window that faces east it was extremely difficult to find a subject, owing to its extreme narrowness and height. Many subjects were tried, but in the end the difficulty was solved by a chance holiday visit to an old Cornish church at St. Neots, and by the reading of a passage out of the “Legend of the Cross” in Baring Gould’s “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” pp. 379–382, [14] which was called to mind by a valued Cornish friend. Out of the “Legend of the Cross,” one of the greatest popularity in the Middle Ages, and often lending itself to representation in varied form in fresco or stained glass, has been designed a window which tells of “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained,” lost when Adam was driven forth from Eden, but regained through the Saviour who died upon the Cross, made, so the Legend runs, from the wood of the three trees which, incorporated and confounded as to their several natures in a single trunk, had grown from the three seeds of the Tree of Life, given to Seth by the Guardian Angel and planted by him in his father’s tomb. “The Tree had grown till its branches reached heaven. The boughs were covered with leaves and flowers and fruit. But the fairest fruit was a little babe, a living sun, who seemed to be listening to the songs of seven white doves who circled round his head.” So runs the legend of the vision of the son of Adam, as, stopped at Eden’s gate by the angel with the flaming sword, he looked into the future. Perhaps, after all, this vision of the redemption of mankind by the coming of the Saviour endowed with all the seven-fold gifts of the Spirit, is not an unworthy subject for a stained glass window in a Christian church to-day.