Polk Family Papers Box 1 Document 13

The Living CHURCH

March 12, 1961 25 cents

[picture of stained glass window]

Parish Administration Issue

At Sewanee, the Civil War shattered not only marble, but hope. Yet out of the ruins there grew a great institution with a proud pattern for education. See History in Stained Glass, p. 14.

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 intertwining 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

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[photo stained glass]

[caption] ABOVE: First of the four six-foot-wide windows depicting scenes of Sewanee's history. Bishop Polk write to fellow-bishops. Nine southern bishops join in the plan. At founding meeting of board of trustees, July 4, 1857, a breeze wraps American flag around Bishop Otey, just as he declares that university will be national, not sectional, in character. Lay leaders with Bishop Polk survey vast university domain. Last two panels show planning of campus and laying of cornerstone. BELOW: Last panel of fourth window shows centennial procession in 1957: In foreground is Mrs. Alfred I. duPont, leading benefactor, with Bishop Juhan of Florida. [/caption]

[photo stained glass window]

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Charles Todd Quintard of Tennesse gathered a few persons (in stark contrast to the large and festive cornerstone assemblage) around a wooden 12-foot cross and with a brief religious service declared, "I hearby re-establish the University of the South."

English Churchmen came to the aid of the project which the south could no longer support. Bishop Quintard's trip to the first Lambeth Conference, from which he returned with [symbol pounds]2,500 and with 2,000 volumes from Oxford and Cambridge, and the opening service in 1868, seven days before the expiration of the grant of land, were essential steps in the survival of the university. Immortalized in stained glass is the plasterer who, according to Bishop Quintard's journal was still at work when the first procession of nine students and four professors entered the chapel. In this period came Sewanee's famous graduate, William Crawford Gorgas (U.S. army surgeon, who by introducing mosquito control to prevent yellow fever and malaria, made possible building the Panama Canal), shown in establishment of Order of Gownsmen. The name "University of the South" bestowed by the first high-visioned founders, became more of a reality with the next scenes: the establishment of the School of Theology in 1878, the founding of the Sewanee Review, now the oldest literary-critical quarterly in America, and the opening of the medical school (which, with the law department, closed in 1909).

Chronicled are Sewanee's great days in athletics, the celebration of the semicentennial in 1907, the visit of a president of the United States. Here are wars in which Sewanee men served and the memorials that were raised to them. Here is the citation of the Sewanee Military Academy as an Army "honor school."

The last windows show the chancellors and vice chancellors of the past two decades.

The varied influences which have made Sewanee the thriving institution of today, contributing leadership and vision to the new south, are symbolized by small seals at the top of the four windows: The University of North Carolina and the Confederate States of America in the first window; over the second window, Oxford and Cambridge, representing the academic tradition upon which the university was refounded after the civil war; over the third window, a symbol of the classical tradition of ancient Greece and Rome, and of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church; and over the fourth, the seals of Sewanee Military Academy and of West Point, representing the tradition of military service.

The installation of the stained glass represents long painstaking work on the part of many persons. The windows were designed by Arthur F. Erridge of J. Wippell and Co., Ltd., of Exeter, England, in connection with the Studios of

The Living Church

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[caption] MEMORIAL CROSS Honoring Sewanee men who gave their lives for their country. In foreground is Will Campbell, stonemason who worked on All Saints' Chapel at its beginning in 1904 and its recent completion. [/caption]

George L. Payne in Paterson, N.J. The manufacture of the glass took 14 months, after a year of planning, research, and sketching. Portraits were obtained from the university archives, descendants, and reference works. The likeness of the marshall of the first procession at Lookout Mountain was provided by the city officials of a town bearing his name, Albert Lea, Minn. Installation of the glass required the services of a specialist, Geza Zelinka of the George Payne Studios, who came from New Jersey to practice his ancient and delicate craft.

It is fitting that the three groups of people most concerned with the University of the South are memorialized in the narthex windows: a member of the faculty, Gen. Edmund Kirby-Smith; three former students, Atlee H. Hoff of Decatur, Ala., and his sons; and two Episcopalians, Charles Tyler Miller and Peter Charles Patrick.

The historical scenes of the narthex windows have helped make All Saints' Chapel of the University of the South a point of pilgrimage for Episcopal travelers - a Canterbury for Episcopalians one enthusiast calls it. But there are also many outside the Church who find at Sewanee an example of the nation's best pattern for the education of its sons - the small religious-centered institution, dedicated to excellence.

March 12, 1961

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[caption] HOSPITAL ESTABLISHED (above): Medical student Cary T. Grayson, later physician to Woodrow Wilson, mixes chemicals. Bishop Dudley of Kentucky, chancellor, and Archdeacon William S. Claiborne, who was responsible for converting infirmary into hospital serving a wide area, look on. [/caption]

[caption] FOUNDING OF ST. LUKE'S SEMINARY (below): In 1876, Charlotte Morris Manigault asked Bishop Quintard, in England to raise funds for Sewanee, what he would suggest for a substantial gift. He told her to wait till next morning when they "would meet at God's altar and there you shall decide." After the service shown here she told the bishop, "I want to build the theological school." It was one of three or four most important moments in Sewanee's history. [/caption]

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