STORY TOLD IN STONE

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1932, Page 15 (Supplement)

STORY TOLD IN STONE

CHURCH OF ST, ANDREW

'EXQUISITE HARMONY OF DESIGN. THE SPIRE ABOVE NEW PLYMOUTH ®UILT FROM ROCKS OF TARANAKI. Symbolic of the thoughts of the worshippers, the tall spire of St. Andrew’s church stands out against the sky from ■almost all parts of New Plymouth. In •the busyness of the town and in the quiet of their outlying homes, men pause to look at the spire, tapering into the sky, guiding their thoughts away from the jostling cares of life and pointing proudly to great hopes of peace. Just a step from the centre of the town stands the church itself, an embodiment of the faith. There is a grace in the disposition of the gray stones which make the building, and a harmony like the harmony of music; as if each stone were a note in a perfect composition. There is the delicate beauty of the songs of Solomon and the strength of the songs of David worked in the stones. • To stand and study the church is to fall under the spell of an exquisite -harmony. The story of the faith itself is told by the mute stones more powerfully than in words. The church itself, with the transept cutting sharp at' right angles between the nave and the chancel, is a Cross in stone. The strength of the faith which has endured through the centuries is told in the hewn pieces of rock. The grace and peace of the Great Teacher lies like an unspoken benediction in the harmony of the design. The aspirations of men are written in the arched windows, the straight tower and the swift spire. Inside the floodlights are lit, for St. Andrew’s leads the way with this most modern form of lighting, and from the northern gallery one looks down into the body of the church. In the interior of the church, bathed in the flood of light, is a charm as deep as the charm of the stone trails and the spire outside. The simplicity of the Scottish forms of worship is there, as always, but with it is a beauty as well that is all the more heightened. In the chancel of the church is a broad dais on which is spread a carpet

In. symbolic blue, running down the steps to the transept. In the forefront of the dais, as the central element of worship, is the communion table, worked in panelled oak. On the western side of the chancel is the baptismal font in cream stone significant of the church’s other sacrament. The pulpit, of panelled oak on a base of cream Canterbury stone, stands on the eastern side of the chancel.and, in the witness of the Scriptures, gives the third stress of the church’s worship. Balancing the pulpit, on the other side, is the oak lectern. On the cream south wall to the left is the church’s roll of honour, which has been removed from the old church in order to be placed in the new. Behind are the three lancet windows which the church hopes one day will be of a devotional nature symbolic of the annunciation, the crucifixion and the resurrection. In the background are the choir seats, arranged in two sections, facing each other. Blue is the dominant note of colour in the chancel, where the beauty of form leads back through the tradition of Knox and Calvin to the very roots •of the church in the Eastern faith. There is' the broad blue carpet, the blue cloth of the communion table, th:, blue of the cushions and of the ribbons in the pulpit Bible.

Down below in the nave of the church are the rows of seats in stained rimu, fitted with book rests and devices for the reception of the communion cups. The church seats five Hundred people and when the gallery is ultimately extended into ' the body of the church there will be room for a hundred more. At either end of the transept are Gothic doors, each bearing the blue cross of St. Andrew.

High above in the ceiling is the maslive Gothic arch of stained beams, all of heart rimu. The beams carry the great arch along to the transept where the second arch, running at right angles, again makes the sign of the Cross above.

The furniture of the church and the pulpit has been given by the women of the. congregation. Gifts made by individual people include the communion table, the lectern, the baptismal font, three oak chairs, certain articles of communion plate, the pupit Bible and ribbons and the stone seat in the Liardet Street wall. Built from the stone of the Waiwakaiho, among the most lasting stone .in New Zealand, the church already holds in its frame something of the history of the province. Every day it is to be open so that worshippers may enter at ill times and find the symbols of their devotion. It is the hope of the founders that the gray church of St. Andrew may become the cathedral church of Taranaki.