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Window of the Month
Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

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Window

Building Name: First United Methodist Church of Dearborn

Studio Name: Payne Spiers Studio

City: Dearborn

Window Shape: 6 (gothic arched, more than 2 vertical sections)

Subject/Title of Window: Wesley Window

Brief Description of Subject: The Wesley seal is at the top. The left panel portrays John Wesley. The central panel portrays Mother Susannah Wesley with her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. The right hand panel portrays Charles Wesley the musician.

The Wesley Window
The Wesley seal (coat of arms) is at the top. It is a unicorn (symbolizing purity) above the cross with four scallops shells- symbolizing sacrifice, baptism, and immortality. The banner beneath declares, “God is Love”. The left hand panel portrays John Wesley. A flame above him  is doubly significant. When he was a lad, he was miraculously saved from the burning Epworth Parsonage. He referred to himself as “ a brand plucked out of the fire”(Zechariah 3:2). On May 24, 1738 John felt his heart strangely warmed as a layman in the Aldergate Street meeting house read from Martin Luther’s a Preface to the Book of Romans’. He referred to this as his conversation experience, and his heart remained warm for more than half a century. The horseman figure is appropriately reading a book. 
 
John Wesley rode more that 250,000 miles as an itinerant racer. His journey was continued for fifty five years, 1735- 1790. He carried and distributed books from his saddlebag.  The horseman figure is a trademark of the Methodist Publishing house. The globe at the bottom of the central panel reminds us that Wesley said, “I look upon the world at my parish”. 
 
The central panel portrays Mother Susannah Wesley with her hand on her daughters shoulder. One of twenty-five children herself, Susannah bore nineteen children and raised ten of them to adulthood.  She taught her daughters as well as her sons.  The first reading lesson on each child’s fifth birthday was Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God”. She was a daughter of a priest, wife of a priest and mother of three priests in the established Church of England. The right hand panel portrays Charles Wesley- the musician. The musical instruments and score sheet are appropriate emblems for Charles. He wrote five thousand hymns. The people the Wesley’s ministered to were, for the most part, illiterate. One way to teach them theology was to put it in rhyme and set it to music.


Condition of Window: Good

Height: 11'6"

Width: 5'4"

Type of Glass and Technique: Lead Came

Wesley Window
Wesley Window
Susannah Wesley
Susannah Wesley
Wesley family Coat of Arms
Wesley family Coat of Arms
John Wesley
John Wesley
Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley

The MSGC is a constantly evolving database. Not all the data that has been collected by volunteers has been sorted and entered. Not every building has been completely documented.

All images in the Index are either born-digital photographs of windows or buildings or are scans of slides, prints, or other published sources. These images have been provided by volunteers and the quality of the material varies widely.

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