Thomas Traherne & the Audley Chapel

The Thomas Traherne stained glass was created by artist Tom Denny and is located in a chapel of Hereford Cathedral. Traherne was an Anglican clergyman of the mid-seventeenth century. Appointed during the Protectorate, he conformed to the new Book of Common Prayer and attendant Act of Uniformity. Unusually for one who subscribed to a largely formalistic religion which valued set prayers over good preaching, Traherne was something of a mystic. Denny’s window well captures his sense of awe and interaction with the created world. We puritan-evangelicals are usually suspicious of mysticism; it smacks of emotion and self-revelation. Yet Traherne and others rightly detect the need for inner witness and personal interaction with the personal God who saves us.

"Heaven is a place where our happiness shall be seen of all. We shall there enjoy the happiness of being seen in happiness, without the danger of ostentation".

In heaven, our worship will be fully emotional without the taint of emotionalism, and our faith personal and moving but without the dangers of introspection and navel-gazing. 

A. D