What then shall the figures be? Shall they be chosen at random? Artistically speaking, this might not be so disastrous, provided the same artist drew all the designs and controlled the execution, so that the scale of drawing and the scheme of color were kept in accord. And that is a great deal more than can be said of some of the principal churches in our greatest cities, where immense sums have been spent on these works. No; there is something better still, open to us. It is a serial treatment, with unity, and progress: so that the whole, when complete, shall tell one great story, each part a chapter therein; the whole impress one truth, each part contributing somewhat to the cumulative force of the great lesson.
And, not to detain you with all the processes of thought and long reflection by which at last we reach our conclusion—the figures we suggest are those which are conspicuous and representative in the Old and New Testaments. Our Divine Lord Himself should be, as He is, exalted in the great window over the altar. Beginning from the angle of the chancel arch to pass around the church, we come first to the pair of small windows next to the organ, from which now the light is excluded by the parish building. They may be taken as in a sense going with the organ, and scarcely a part of the general scheme. Let them be treated, at some time, in mosaic, with Singing Angels,[C] thus corresponding to the Angels directly opposite in the corresponding small windows. Then we pass to the first pair of lancets of uniform size, Melchizedek and Abraham: the latter the great father of the faithful, the head of the covenant people; the former even superior to him, a priest forever, without beginning or end of days, type of our Lord’s own Highpriesthood. Melchizedek appears before Abraham, bearing bread and wine, foreshadowing of the Holy Eucharist. What more suitable, as we look up to the altar and see above it the figure of Our Blessed Lord, than to turn to the head of the nave, and find here, at the dawn of religious history, standing out as type of the Christ in whom the course of the ages shall culminate, this King of Salem at the very beginning?
[C] Recently placed.
We pass on. The next pair will be Moses and Samuel: both conspicuous as appointed of God to lead, to rule, to judge the people whom God had chosen; Founders of Israel as a nation. Surely these, if any, we must commemorate as among the greatest in the covenant history.
This brings us to the third or middle pair. Woman, too, bears her conspicuous part in the spiritual history of mankind. Deborah[D] judged Israel for forty years in a period of disorder and confusion, and led the way to victory: Ruth,[D] a very different type, beautiful and gentle, became one of that line of whom David, and David’s Greater Son, were born. Other women might have been chosen, as well as other men; but on the whole, none more typical, none better fitted to instruct and to impress.
[D] Now in place.
The fourth pair continues the narrative. David and Elijah, each so striking in his way, bring back the kingdom in its glory and the kingdom in its disaster; religion sweetly ministrant with music, and religion sternly denouncing national sin; the royal harp, and the prophetic mantle.
And finally, the fifth pair on this side, Isaiah and Malachi: the greatest of all the prophets, called the Evangelist of the Old Testament; and the last of seers, who most clearly foretold both Messiah and Forerunner.
Thus we arrive at one of the entrances, and turning the corner, we stand before the first of the windows at the lower end. It is large enough to admit more than one figure. It continues the story from Malachi, to him who went before the face of the Lord: it presents to us St. John The Baptist,[E] baptizing at Jordan; and close by it stands the Font with its summons, as of old, to the washing away of sins.
[E] To be erected in the near future.