Cemented with Tears

The Altar

by George Herbert

A broken A L T A R, Lord, thy servant rears,

Made of a heart, and cemented with tears:

Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;

No workman’s tool hath touched the same.

                A H E A R T alone

                Is such a stone,

                As nothing but

                Thy pow'r doth cut.

                Wherefore each part

                Of my hard heart

                Meets in this frame,

                To praise thy Name;

That, if I chance to hold my peace,

These stones to praise thee may not cease.

O let thy blessed S A C R I F I C E be mine,

And sanctify this A L T A R to be thine.

Altar of Saint John the Evangelist at St. Mark's Church, Philadelphia

The Altar of Saint John the Evangelist was originally that of the Lady Chapel, and was given by Rodman Wanamaker, the son of John Wanamaker. When his wife Fernanda Henry died in 1900, he built the Lady Chapel as a memorial and she is buried in the crypt beneath it. The original furnishings of the chapel were of alabaster and carved wood, deigned by C. E. Kempe.

When Mr. Wanamaker subsequently decided to re-furnish the chapel in it present style, the altar and reredos were placed at the head of the north aisle. This altar, which is of carved alabaster, was rededicated to Saint John - now the arrangement of altars echoes the traditional grouping around the foot of the Cross with Jesus in the center and his Blessed Mother and the Beloved Disciple on the sides. The reredos is of black oak carved in Oberammergau in 1903 and then polychromed in England. It contains figures representing David, Isaiah and other Prophets of the Incarnation, as well as great theologians of the Church: Saints Ambrose, Augustine, and Anselm on the left and Saints Gregory the Great, Jerome and Bernard on the right. The carved figures of the Annunciation that are now in the Baptistery were originally in the center panels of this polyprych.