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Detail of "Adoration" window, 1954, by D. Dearie for Ryerson United Church. represented holding a knife in his right hand and supporting a bundle of faggots in his left arm which would be allusive to his sacrifice and typifying his great faith... possibly as shown in my sketch, Moses does not look patriarchal enough nor do the Tablets of the Law look sufficient a burden. The charm of this window lies in the harmonious balance of colour in the glass. Dearie has placed the figures against a strong, formalized vine pattern in the true Morris tradition. The result is a window decorative both in colour and form. Another major repository of stained glass by Duncan Dearie in Vancouver is Ryerson United Church, which is completely filled with Dearie glass designed in 1953 and 1954, just before his death. There are ten windows at Ryerson United Church and they represent late versions of themes that had been in Dearie's mind in 1932: the Baptism of Christ; the First Miracle at Cana; the Road to Emmaus; the Resurrection Morning; the Supreme Sacrifice; Christ Blessing the Children; the Good Shepherd; the Adora- tion; Christ in the Carpenter's Shop; and Christ in the Temple with the Doctors. All the windows were given by one member of the church, whose grandson visited Dearie in 1952. Three purposes of the glass were served: as memorials; as objects of instruction; and as decoration with well-balanced rich colour warming the church. Dearie felt that a stained glass worker merely decorated what an architect created, an attitude which had been prevalent among many of the best English glass makers who saw the function of the glass maker as providing windows which were in harmony with an architectural setting and not in competition with it. At Ryerson United Dearie again resorted to his practice of making use of the traditional designs and cartoons of the Morris firm. In some cases he re-used what belonged to the firm, for the Adoration is a re-working of Burne-Jones's Star of Bethlehem, already added to by Henry Dearie. The greater part of the work, however, is his own. Duncan Dearie's late designs, while adhering to certain aspects of the Morris tradition also represent a break with it. Some of these bear only a superficial resemblance to those of Morris and Company's 19th century work. Progressively he concentrated on colour to produce an immediate effect of balance and peace. The glass for the skies, with their blue depths lit by golden stars, contains nine or more shades; the formalized trees, the crisp wings of angels, the pebbled roads are composed with great technical competence. His figures, however, are often strange, deformed, disproportioned, dematerialized and flattened against the background of the glass. His early work at Vancouver proves that he was able to draw in the true Morris style when he wished to do so, but this style was not that of the first half of the 20th century. Dearie undoubtedly was a-ware of the impact of modern abstract art, and as an antiquarian, an F.S.A., he would also have been aware of earlier schools of glass making which were more stylized and less naturalistic than those favoured by Morris and Burne-Jones. Increasingly, Dearie's figures seemed to become less material, less tied to this earth. They became abstract, unearthly creatures remote from the sufferings of the world and transported to a glowing, ordered realm where pain has ceased. Dearie himself may well have yearned for a place in the heavenly kingdom. His last years involved considerable physical pain. He had been born with curvature of the spine, and in the years from 1950 up to his death in 1954, the years when most of his Vancouver windows were made, he had been severely ill from bouts of spinal arthritis. 1. Albert Charles Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle (New Haven: 1974), Vol. II, pp. 232-33. 2. Op. tit., Vol. I, p. 217. Alice Hamilton, professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, is a pioneer in the research of stained glass in Canada. Corey Keehle is Assistant Curator in the European Department of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. 50 May/June 1979