A brief record of the Female Orphan House, North Circular Road, Dublin, for over one hundred years, from 1790 to 1892 / compiled by Nemo.

Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief record of the Female Orphan House, North Circular Road, Dublin, for over one hundred years, from 1790 to 1892 / compiled by Nemo. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/76 (page 29)
    ERECTION OF THE CHAPEL. But there was another matter which engaged the anxious thought of the Governors and Governesses for some years jjreviously. VVe may give it in the words of Bishop Jebb from the sermon he preached at the opening of the Chapel on the 3rd May, 1818 :—• “ Hitherto the unspeakably important particular of public wor- ship was by no means adequately provided for. In our variable climate, it is obvious that proper care for the health of the children would often keep them at home: an individual, indeed, or even a family, may, perhaps, in the severest weather, snatch a favourable half-hour, or find shelter by the way; not so an assemblage of more than one hundred and sixty female children. But, even when they could safely go abroad, no single church in the neighbourhood was prepared to receive their entire number: hence, they were inevitably dispersed through different churches ; and the disadvantages of this dispersion were sensibly felt. The remedy may here i)03sibly present itself, that Divine Service might have been performed on Sundays, in the school-room ; but, in justice, it must be said, that the Guardians of this Institution never thought of statedly and ])ermanently adopting such an expedient; convinced that this would not, properly speaking, be public ivonhip. It was, therefore, determined to build a chapel. The question of dimensions im- mediately occurred. Should the chapel be fitted merely to contain the inmates of the House? or should it be calculated, also, for the reception of strangers ? The Guardians did not long hesitate. They saw, that the weekly collection arising from the bounty of a respectable congregation, would be a source of revenue ; a consideration, which, as trustees of public money, they could not justly disregard. But this was not their leading motive. 'I'hey felt that it would be a perpetual and growing benefit, of a far superior kind, to give these adopted orphans frequent and periodical opportunities of uniting with a beneficent public in the common worship of Almighty God. As to appearance and interior decoration, the object has been to make this building what may properly be called a church ; that is, on the one hand to avoid all ostentatious ornament and show ; but, on the other, to shun all sordid and unseemly negligence :—in a word, the attempt has been made, and it is hoped, not unsuccessfully, to render the build- ing answerable to the service of our Church ; which, above any l)ublic service in the world, is at once cheerful, simple, and majestic.” The amount expended in the erection of the chapel wa.s criticised by the Government of the day, and the following