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In 1942 Spencer wrote of his youthful
attendance and love of the gentle homely atmosphere in the Wesleyan
Chapel in Cookham, now the Stanley Spencer Gallery. When people felt
‘Entirely Sanctified’ they would ‘flop down’ on ‘that sacred
piece of ground’ that ‘counted’ for ‘coming to the Lord’.
‘It seemed to be the take off place for their Methodist heaven.’
This ‘sort of spiritual apotheosis of a grocer’ is seen in the
central figure with face uplifted. On the left is a steward (who
conducted part of the service) in a kitchen chair in a ‘Guy Fawkes
attitude with beard’. Spencer’s idea was never painted, but it
incorporated children on the right ‘safe & cosy in the arms of
Jesus’. Further left he planned ‘pews with us in them’ and figures
on the right were to include Wesleyan souls being carried off to glory.
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