wonderful new edifice as it looked to Christ Church members as they worshipped in it for the first time, that rainy Sunday, May 21, 1876.
"The new Christ Church, which the Protestant Episcopal parish of this city have built, like a city set upon a hill, and have begun to occupy for their worship, is destined when completed to rival in beauty the Church of the Unity, which has hitherto been undisputably supreme among the architectural adornments of the city. Fortunate in a commanding site on the crown of Chestnut Street, it is built in a style and with an amplitude of design worthy of the place . . . The Church is' built according to the Norman architecture, of Longmeadow brownstone, with a rich variety in cutting that we'll accords with the varied outline of the design. The front view presents the high gable and rose-window of the nave, beneath it the mullioned windows of the closed vestibule between the portal of the north cloister and the tower at the southwest corner,—a tower of singularly elegant and picturesque proportion. On the south side, the tower and transept gable, with the south cloister, of the nave' advancing half-height beneath the clerestory between them, look so fine from State Street, especially beneath the majestic benediction of the great elm at the east, that one wishes it were, possible to preserve the little park now between it and the street always unencumbered with buildings, just to keep that picturesque effect. The interior is beautiful and imposing in high degree. The auditory is a cross, with cloistered aisles alongside the nave, and a deep chancel. The north and south transepts are each, like the nave, lighted by a large rose window, framed in dressed brownstone; the windows, and also the trefoils and triangles, and the windows of the clerestory and cloisters are of stained cathedral glass in bold free designs' and vivid colors. The entire depth of the Church from nave to chancel is 128 feet; the transept 86 feet across and 50 feet wide; the nave and aisles 60 feet; the chancel 31 x 32; and the height from floor to apex of 'roof 62 feet. The roof is the most immediately striking feature of the interior, being unlike any other in the city.
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