2

History
in
Stained
Glass

[picture black and white photograph of chapel]
[caption]CHAPEL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.
Representing the vigor of the new south as well as the traditions of the old, the chapel presents Sewanee's struggles and achievements in new stained glass windows.[/caption]

In the national tragedy that was the
Civil War, one serious loss, both to
the Episcopal Church and to the nation,
was the shattering of the dream of
Bishop Leonidas Polk for the founding of
the University of the South. A great institution
today in terms of quality, and still
blessed with the vast domain adequate to
any amount of physical expansion, the
university was expected by the sponsoring
southern dioceses to be not only the
best but the largest educational institution
on the American continent.

A set of four stained-glass windows
depicting in 24 panels the history of
Sewanee has recently been dedicated in
the central chapel of the university, All
Saints'. Beginning with Bishop Polk's
letter of July 1, 1856, inviting his fellow
bishops of the south to join with him in
founding the university, the windows
show, step by step, the early planning,
the dashing of hopes, and the courageous
refounding after the war - a war which
took the lives of Bishop Polk and other
friends of Sewanee and wrecked the fortunes
of most of those who survived.

The cornerstone of the University of
the South was laid on October 10, 1860.
Six months later the Civil War began.

The cover picture of the week's issue
of THE LIVING CHURCH shows a scene
symbolic of much that happened in the
conflict - the blowing up in 1863 of the
cornerstone which had been laid less than
three years before. This was not a military
action, but a needless prank of
Illinois soldiers quartered on the mountaintop.
Their colonel, an Episcopalian,
went on record as deploring this act
of vandalism.

The historical windows are in the narthex
of All Saints' Chapel. In the main
body of the $2,000,000 structure a set of
20 great clerestory windows will tell the
story of the Old and New Testaments,
culminating in a Te Deum series over the
altar, following the Book of Common
Prayer.

The great rose window at the west end
combines the historical and the religious,
with symbols of the 24 dioceses which
during Sewanee's first hundred years were
owners of the university, united by inter-
twining leaves and radiating from a cen
tral chalice. The windows lining the nave
depict personages representing the disciplines
which have been taught in the university.
Some are saints, some are historic
figures, and some, like Henry Disbrow
Phillips, late Bishop of Southwestern
Virginia, whos likeness represents
"athletics," have a close personal connection
with Sewanee.

In the side chapel dedicated to St. Augustine,
another rose window contains
emblems of the apostles. The coming of
the Church to the mountaintop is represented
by four figures - St. Augustine of
Canterbury, St. Aidan of Lindisfarne,
Bishop William White of Pennsylvania,
and William Porcher DuBose, first chaplain
and Sewanee's great contribution to
theological thought.

All Saints', like medieval cathedrals,
has been long in the building. Construction
was started in 1904. With a temporary
roof and wall in place in 1910, it
became the most used Episcopal Church
in the south, with an average of 3,500
attendances a week. Now complete except
for the clerestory windows, it has a seating
capacity of 1,000. The university is
proud of having a chapel with more seats
than its athletic stadium.

The four windows of the narthex depict
the historic moments and people of
the university's first 100 years. All 14 of
the chancellor-bishops, all 11 vice chancellors,
some of the principal teachers
and benefactors are shown. There are six
panels in each of the four windows. These
four-and-twenty scenes contain seven dozen
portrait likenesses. The care with
which the scenes were drawn made the
cost of the windows ($24,000) higher
than traditional designs, but here the
subtle traditions which form the personality
of the university are shown.

Efforts by single dioceses to found colleges
in the south had failed in the 19th
century. The beginning of the University
of the South as an enterprise for all the
dioceses of the region was an idea in the
mind of a man, Bishop Leonidas Polk of
Louisiana, and the first scene of the first
window shows him in 1856 writing a letter
to his fellow bishops, proposing a
great university, to rank second to none.
There follow scenes of planning - all the
southern bishops in Philadelphia at General
Convention that year, the trustees at
Lookout Mountain in 1857, the Tennesseans
who secured the land, Bishop John
Henry Hopkins of Vermont planning the
campus - culminating in the laying of
the cornerstone, six tons of pink Tennessee
marble, amid the jubilation of a vast crowd.

In the second of the arched Gothic
windows is the sequel. The Civil War is
represented by the soldiers igniting a
charge of gunpowder in the cornerstone.
Early in 1866 Connecticut-born Bishop

March 12, 1961 15