(Katherine Powers, originally published March 7, 1987. Source currently unknown.)
Window, window. Who has the window!
The Parish Historians Society has begun the enormous task of creating an inventory of all of the stained-glass windows in the Diocese. The importance of having some record of the wheres and whys of these glass treasures is illustrated by the tale below, told by the Assistant Archivist.
Many who read this will be surprised to learn that a stained-glass window once found a place in St. Paul's Church— now the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. Sadly enough, the history of this window is not entirely known. Nonetheless, as we attempted in vain to discover the window's provenance and final destination, another—in some ways more interesting—story began to emerge.
We found from the minutes of the annual meeting 1867, that the proprietors of St. Paul's authorized the wardens and vestry to install a stained-glass window "to fill the aperture or space left in the original wall for that purpose” This would, they hoped, dissipate the gloominess of the church's interior.
We realized how wrong we were to have concluded that the window dated from 1867 when we came to the minutes of the annual meeting of 1873 and found the proprietors again authorizing the installation of a stained-glass window in addition to other improvements "in keeping with the place."
This time their plans were accomplished and the results may be seen in the photographs. The window depicts St. Paul preaching to the Athenians. We can find no record, however, of who designed and built the window. The minutes of the proprietors' meetings and of the wardens and vestry are silent on the subject. The newspapers of the day say only that the window "is to be imported from Europe, and will be very beautiful and elaborate."
On either side of the window are the Evangelists. About the renovations, a Boston paper said: "In no church in this city has the interior been so completely changed as in St. Paul's,… The severe simplicity of its old-time appearance is now lost, and for it has been substituted a beauty and richness of adornment which is most attractive. The object which has been aimed at… and which has been happily secured, was to return the classical style in which the architecture… [was] originally conceived." We shall return to the oddness of this statement later.
But what was the meaning of the five year gap between the first authorization of a stained-glass window and its actual installation? And why, indeed, did it have to be authorized twice?
Here we think we have found an answer. From 1859 until 1872 the rector of St. Paul's was the Rev. William R. Nicholson. He was very much a man of Low Church views. Indeed, it seemed that he was positively Calvinistic in his preaching. His sermons were notorious for both length and tedium. In 1860, a large number of St. Paul's parishioners left and established a church in the newly developed and highly prestigious Back Bay. This was Emmanuel Church. Clearly, those who deserted St. Paul's for Emmanuel held evangelical views. This exodus must have greatly altered the make-up of St. Paul's congregation, leaving it with a High Church tendency.
We can imagine what sort of relations existed between the dour Nicholson and his flock after 1860. In fact, we have come across a list of the rectors of St. Paul's Church in the Archives which has "no good!" written beside his name. We can speculate that the proprietors' attempt to install a stained-glass window in 1867 was somehow thwarted by the rector. And, no doubt, relief was mutual when Nicholson left St. Paul's in 1872. (Not long after that he left the Episcopal Church altogether and joined the newly formed Reformed Episcopal Church and became a bishop.)
The congregation of St. Paul's was, we glean, somewhat demoralized by this time. They went almost a year without a rector until they secured the Rev. Treadwell Walden. The proprietors expressed the hope that a new rector and a stained-glass window would attract a more numerous congregation.
All in all, we shall have to say that their hopes were not fulfilled. With more downs than ups, St. Paul's struggled through the rest of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Then Bishop Lawrence stepped in and transformed the church into a cathedral. This saved St. Paul's, but doomed the window. William Lawrence had a particular aversion to stained glass that had been added to buildings that were never meant to be so embellished.
But here, perhaps, we have another puzzle. The proprietors seemed to be quite definite that the addition of the stained-glass window, not to mention the ornamentation of the apse and chancel, was in keeping with the building's original plans. But, as we who spend our time in the archives know, the original interior was, and was meant to be, very simple. The walls of the chancel were inscribed with the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles' Creed. Be this as it may, we do think we must take the proprietors' beliefs in good faith. So, it seems that they somehow translated the idea that St. Paul's is a Georgian building and thus, presumably, follows Grecian ideas of beauty into the notion that, as St. Paul's is a Grecian building, Byzantine decoration complements its design.
But, whatever their reasoning was, its fruit was not to Bishop Lawrence's taste. In 1914, he engaged the services of the architectural firm of Cram and Ferguson to renovate the Cathedral. As it happened, however, the need to raise money for the Church Pension Fund and the World War intervened and work on the Cathedral was postponed. But in 1927, Cram and Ferguson finally executed their commission. The window was removed.
There is reason to think that it was given to another church. But which church is a question we cannot answer. Perhaps it still finds a home in this Diocese. Perhaps one of our readers knows. We hope that in the course of the Parish Historians' inventory we shall come across St. Paul preaching to the Athenians.
-Taken from article written by Katherine Powers, Parish Historian Society, March 7, (1987?)
If you know how she can be reached, please contact Roger Lovejoy at the Cathedral.
Photos saved on Flickr.com.