Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/301

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and its Green Border-Land.
287

ciate. They are taking, I will venture to say, lifting, glass-painting from the old ecclesiastical groove in which it has run for so many centuries. Instead of those grotesque anachronisms which have covered the cathedral and church windows for so many ages—instead of apostles, saints, martyrs, and mitred bishops standing on the tips of perpendicular soles, apparently with the rim of a copper basin around their heads, and in robes which would have astonished Peter or Paul, the Chances are giving us forms and scenes that belong to actual human life and history; making men show their manhood to the fulness of truth, being, and act. In thus secularising the art, as some may call it, they have elevated it to a higher standard for sacred and religious portraiture; and I am confident that this effect will be discernable in many of the future painted windows which will supersede those now centuries old in English cathedrals and churches.

The Light-house department of the works will fill the visiter with wonder. For the manufacture of these great sea-lanterns is one of the specialities of the establishment which, perhaps more than any other, distinguishes it from works of the like character in this and other countries. Here you see all the working sciences and mechanical forces co-operating in busy harmony in producing these beacon and guide lights for benighted ships. Not