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Page 7 text:
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By Annie Allison Maxwell ALF a century ago a great preacher, addressing a group of students at Yale, said a fine thing about the preparation of the Apostles, — when it was complete they stood fused like glass, and able to take God ' s truth in perfectly on one side and to send it out perfectly on the other side of their transparent natures. Science is busy to ' day with the manufacture of glass which will transmit sunlight with no change in its properties, so that our windows shall not only give us a vision of the world ' s glory of colour and form and movement, but shall admit to us all the bene- ficence of light, unchanged by the medium through which it comes. That is perhaps our ideal of a window — to give us a clear view outside, of the world as it is; and to admit to us inside, light unchanged in its essence. Yet there is a sort of window which attempts a very different thing: — it stands between us and the view of the world; it arrests our vision at its own surface; the light which streams through it is merely the medium which illumines itself, and, falling beyond it, lays on the objects touched the hues and shapes of the devices upon it. Such a window is a favourite with the poets, — Milton ' s storied windows richly dight, Scott ' s prophets ' and saints whose image on the glass was dyed, and Keats ' inimitable description beginning, a casement high and triple arched there was. These are the windows which arrest our thoughts of the present, and turn us to the greatness of the past, sending our ideas onward again coloured with the great deeds, the holy legends or the quaint fancies of the history out of which our present springs. Such a window I have in mind, placed at the landing of a noble staircase in an old mansion, laying changing lights of amber, emerald and sapphire on wall and floor. The mind of the beholder is carried back to the long past by the silver strings of Ireland ' s harp, the crimson lion of Scotland, the three golden lions passant gardant of England. A mailed arm and a helmet speak of old wars; silver scallop shells, of pious pilgrimages. The ancient and intricate devices of heraldry, by which family and national prowess were honourably distinguished, have a charm for most of us, and this great window, triple arched and glowing with gem-like colours, stands for traditions of worth and achievement. It is a good thing to live clear-sightedly in the present and to look with visionary ardour toward the future, but eyes that never turn with gratitude to the past, to look upon its splendour and sacrifice, will lack the wisdom that penetrates values and estimates proportion. The old mansion with its beautiful window has become the heart of a school for girls, distinguished for many years; from the Atlantic to the Pacific women turn to it as their Alma Mater. The colours %)f the historic window fall the year long upon students hurrying to classes, to the gymnasium, to work or to play. Beneath its chang- ing lights the seniors in cap and gown assemble for the happy solemnity of Bacca- laureate Sunday, they pace below it with the daisy chain of class day upon their shoulders, they glance up at it for the last time, their arms filled with the roses of Commencement day. With a strange prophecy the moving finger of the sun wrote long ago upon the wall as it writes to-day in softly radiant letters, O. L. C; not the monogram inserted in the old window after the Ontario Ladies ' College of Whitby was established, but from a chance combination of curves and lines in the old heraldic devices the letters fall; meaningless for those who lived in the old mansion in the days before Confederation and opened their doors for the entertainment of a prince, but waking a loyal thrill of remembrance and pride to-day in the hearts of the students of sixty years. Sunshine floods the windows of dormitory and class-room, the glories of the changing seasons are visible in the wide view stretching from the blue hills to the gleaming lake, but the great window on the staircase, venerable and beautiful, has a significance of its own, memorable and impressive.
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