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Dunblane Cathedral
The Cross, Dunblane, Perthshire FK15 0AQ |
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Cathedral and Halls
Virtual Tour
The South Aisle | The South Aisle |
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Although the whole scene is a unity, the artist has contrived to establish a difference between the middle lights and the two side lights, expressing in colour and treatment the inner significance for our Lord of this solemn act of consecration. In the second light from the right, our Lord is seen standing in the moment of being baptised by John. On our Lord's face is a serious resolve of self-dedication, through which one can see shining the peace of God which brooded in his Heart. John stands beside Him clothed as the Scriptures describes him - a man of rugged appearnce and character. In order to mark out the baptism of our Lord as not simply a spectacle for a gazing multitude but an act that had its place in the purpose of God, the artist has introduced in the third light two angels as witnesses of the fulfilment of the Divine plan. In St Luke's Gospel (iii:10-14) we are told that the people and tax-gatherers and soldiers were spectators of John's baptismal services, and asked him questions as to what they should do. And, although we do not read of them as present on the occasion when our Lord asked John to baptise Him, the artist has introduced them into the widow. In the first light (from the right) there is a Roman soldier and also a family group' in which the beautiful face of a mother may arrest attention; in the fourth light there stands a tax-gatherer richly clothed, and beside him a workman kneels while his son pers over his shoulder.
Between the tower and the south-west doorway are the Barty windows, erected in 1917 by the family of Dr and Mrs J W Barty in their memory. The artist was Louis Davis of London. The subject of these two windows is the "Nunc Dimittis", or Song of Simeon (St Luke ii: 29-32).
The sculptor was Richard Kindersley of London and the memorial is fashioned from Clashash sandstone quarried on the coast near Elgin and laid on base slabs of Caithness flagstones from Thurso. All four sides of the stone are covered with deeply carved letters - the literary extracts of which are from several sources: He called a little child to Him, set it down in their midst and said, "Hear the truth. Unless your hearts are changed and you become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven at all." - from Matthew ch18, v3 in The Four Gospels translated by E V Rieu, 1952. 1996 Tragedy Memorial (facing south)"If there is anything that will endure the eye of God, because it is pure, it is the spirit of a little child." - from The Children's Prayer by R H Stoddard (1825-1903). "But still I dream that somewhere there must be the spirit of a child that waits for me." - from The Poet's Journal Third Evening by Bayard Taylor (1825-78). "We are linked as children in a circle dancing." by W H Auden (1907-73). The texts give the stone a voice and, although they speak of children, have a lesson for adults - it is the recognition of truth and innocence so near the surface of children that strikes a chord in adults of something partly lost or covered over in adult lives. It was the shocking and violent intrusion of the adult world into the children of Dunblane that numbed society. This stone, with its inscriptions, is placed to heal that man-made chasm and to remind us of the love of God, so evident in the joy of children.
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