many years now in the place; his Christian charity and genuine kindliness of nature, have been widely felt, and have silently made their way among the people, with a humanizing and elevating result; but it takes many, many years, to efface the evils of the bad example and neglect of past generations. You perhaps may think that I have described a very unusual and extreme state of things; it may have been worse than many; but though even in those times of widespread lethargy in the Church, there may not have been many parishes as utterly neglected as the one I have told you about, I know on the other hand, few places where I have seen such advantages, as I found at Sonning. God's message of mercy to man was not only plainly set before the people in the Church, but to that was added every thing that reverent love for God's house and home could do, to make the services the true expression of the spirit of devotion, and the care bestowed for the honour of God's name in the ministrations of the Church, was only one, though perhaps the most apparent, and easily appreciated expression of the influence, which went through everything done in the place, for the welfare of the people. Often, as noiselessly as the dew falls, good influences work among us, refreshing and beautifying all within their reach, and too often only fully perceived and valued, when their reviving and softening power has passed away from our lives." AT SONNING CHURCH. BAPTISMS. Feb. 13th, Joseph, son of Joseph and Charlotte Jane Allom, Woodley. Feb. 18th, (privately), Carry, daughter of John and Alice Winchcomb, Woodley. MARRIAGE. Jan. 30th, at Sonning Church, William Armstrong, Dublin, to Maria Louisa Bagent, Dunsden. BURIALS. AT SONNING CHURCH. Feb. 20th, William George, of Woodley, aged 84. Feb. 5th, Robert Symes, Dunsden Green, aged 65. SONNING : Church Services. Sundays: 11 o'clock in the Morning. half-past 6 o'clock in the evening. Wednesdays (during Lent): 7 o'clock in the evening. ALL SAINTS' : (during Lent,) half-past 5 in the evening. Sundays: 11 o'clock in the morning. half-past 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Wednesdays (during Lent): 11 o'clock in the morning. SONNING: HOLY WEEK. Daily 11 o'clock in the Morning. 7 o'clock in the Evening. The preachers' names will be put up at the Church doors at the beginning of the week. ALL SAINTS' : Daily 11 o'clock in the morning, and on Good Friday at 7 o'clock in the evening. SONNING: EASTER SUNDAY. 8 o'clock in the morning, Holy Communion. 11 o'clock, Morning Service with Holy Communion. 7 o'clock, Evening Service. We have to acknowledge with many thanks the following donations to the Sonning Magazine for 1869, making up the deficit of £6 announced last month. R. Palmer, Esq. Miss Palmer Miss L. Palmer £ s. d. J. A. Symonds, Esq. Rev. H. Pearson о On March 17th, another sale of children's clothes took place at Woodley School. It was the most successful that has yet been held, £10 were received, and more than four hundred articles of clothing were sold. We hope to give a full report of this fund next month, together with the annual accounts of the Sonning and All Saints' Charities, which have been unavoidably postponed. S. ANDREW'S CHURCH, SONNING, XII. There still remain one or two more of the later additions to be mentioned in our account of the restoration of the Church. Nothing has been said yet about the painted windows, though in point of fact the east window was filled with painted glass when the Church was re-opened, as well as the small two-light Norman window over the south door, this last being the gift of Mr. Dell, the contractor for the works. I have no doubt that all the windows in our Church, were originally filled with painted glass. In the middle ages this appears to have been the only kind of glass used in Churches, and almost all the parish Churches in England have some old remains of this beautiful material. In our Church there were just enough fragments in several of the windows to show what had formerly been there. It is not to be wondered at that so little should have survived, when we remember that not only is painted glass constantly liable to injury, from the brittleness of its material, but also that there have been times when it has been the object of wanton and intentional destruction. At the time of the Reformation, in spite of the remonstrances of all the most eminent Reformers, much mischief was done to the painted windows in the Cathedrals and Parish Churches of the country through popular excitement, but unquestionably the greatest destruction took place at the time of the Puritan rebellion in the 17th century. During the civil wars the Republican troops were generally quartered in the Churches, and then it was that so many of the costly sculptures, monuments, and painted windows. which the piety of ages had stored up, were ruthlessly demolished by profane hands. I have little doubt that our painted glass perished then, and that the heads of the statues on the sculptured arch in the Sacrarium, were then knocked off. The art itself of glass painting died out when architecture declined, and therefore it is not surprising that in subsequent reparations, common white glass took the place of the former decorations, till the revival of the art in our own day. The reasons for having painted glass remain the same as ever. Its use is, first, to act as a blind against the sun. In modern days common blinds, such as we use in our houses, were made to answer this purpose, and many of us can remember the singularly unsightly blinds which hung over the south windows in our Church. Our forefathers, with the exquisite taste and noble liberality which distinguished them, thought that the richness of painted glass was more becoming to the house of God, and they felt too, that the subdued light cast over the Church by stained windows added greatly to the solemnity of the building, a feeling into which Milton, Puritan though he was, deeply entered. Every one remembers the famous lines in his poem "Il Penseroso," which have almost become pro verbial: But secondly, a main use of painted windows is to teach sacred truths, and to illustrate the Bible and Church history. The eye takes in more quickly than the ear, and representations of sacred scenes constantly before the eye, cannot fail to impress themselves on the mind, and to aid devotion. We determined to have painted glass, for the East window at all events put in by the day of the re-opening. A special subscription was made for it, and Mr. Wailes, of Newcastle, was entrusted with the work. The subject chosen was the Transfiguration. Partly from there being hardly sufficient time given for the work, and partly from the imperfection of the art 16 years ago, the window was not so satisfactory as we hoped. There are good parts in it, and the colouring is effective; but the figures are too large, and the whole is wanting in refinement This window was removed to the South Chancel in 1869, to make way for a new East Window, the work of Messrs. Hardman, of Birmingham. The design is, in the centre light, the Crucifixion, and on either side, a scene from the life of St. Andrew, our patron saint. The whole window is exceedingly rich, and without darkening that part of the Church is a most beautiful ornament, and a help to devotional feeling. It is a memorial window, the gift of Mr. Palmer's family. The three memorial windows in the South Aisle, erected in 1858, 1860 and 1869 respectively, are also the work of Messrs. Hardman. They are much and deservedly admired, and it is not uninstructive to observe, as shewing a progressive improvement in the art, that the one erected last, is best both in purity of material and in colour, and most nearly approaches the old medieval glass. The two windows in the West gables of the Aisles, containing figures of S. John the Baptist, and S. Andrew, were executed by Messrs Hardman, in 1869, and were the gift of friends. We have only to mention further on this subject, that parts of the old East Window, were distributed into the small South window of the Rich Chapel, and into the circular window over the arch into the Chai.cel, with excellent effect in both cases. It is the peculiar characteristic of Messrs. Hardman's glass in our Church, that it scarcely diminishes the light at all, and therefore we may well hope to see several more windows, in process of time, filled with stained glass of the same kind. A few other gifts made to the Church still remain to be noticed. To be continued. H.P. BAPTISMS. SONNING. Feb. 24th, Gwendoline Eva, daughter of Francis and Elizabeth Brown. Sonning. March 13th, Henry James, son of John and Sarah Johnson, Woodley. March 20th, Alfred Henry, son of Jeremiah and Emily Hambleton, Woodley. |