Last Sunday we celebrated the Baptism of our Lord. St. Paul’s has had two windows depicting the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, and I’d like to tell you about both of them.

We saw the first depiction in an earlier post, because it is a section of the window donated by Donald Shore Candlyn. This window was originally installed in the Memorial Chapel on Lancaster Street, and moved to the chapel in the Hackett Boulevard building in 1966. Like all the chapel windows, it was designed and built by the Wilbur H. Burnham Studios of Boston. This section is titled “The Baptism of Christ,” and a pamphlet on the windows by William S. McEwan refers to the account in Mark 1:9-11.

“The Baptism of Christ.” in St. Paul’s Chapel

The other window was originally installed in the nave of the Lancaster Street church. It was donated by “a large number of persons who received the Rite of Holy Baptism in St. Paul’s Parish,” and dedicated on Palm Sunday 1914. This donation was probably one response to the 1906 appeal of our rector, Roelif Hasbrouck Brooks to the congregation “to repair and beautify their church by memorial gifts.” Titled “The Baptism of Christ,” it was designed by Frederick Stymetz Lamb, and built by the Studios of J. and R. Lamb, New York City.

“The Baptism of Christ” (Photo courtesy of the Gelman Stained Glass Museum)

This window, along with nine other windows from the Lancaster Street nave, was brought to the Hackett Boulevard church in 1966, and installed in the narthex.  In the photograph below, you can see “Baptism of Christ” in the lower right corner.

Early photograph of the Hackett Boulevard narthex, with stained glass windows.

These windows remained in the Hackett Boulevard narthex until about 2005, when the deteriorating condition of the window supports forced our vestry to sell the windows and replace them with new glass. All ten windows are now in the collection of Lawrence R. Gelman and beginning in 2018 will be displayed in his Stained Glass Museum in San Juan, Texas.