One hundred years ago
It is proposed that a painting of the Resurrection, by Mr Burne Jones, shall be put up in the centre of the reredos in the church in Vere Street, as a memorial to the late Frederick Denison Maurice, for ten years the incumbent of that church. The painting will be in keeping with a painted window over the altar, designed by Mr Burne Jones, and which is to be executed by Messrs Morris and Co., at the cost of Lady de Blaquiere, in memory of her husband; and an inscription on brass will be elsewhere placed in the church to commemorate the fact that Mr Burne Jones's painting has been chosen as the most fitting memorial of Mr Maurice. Undoubtedly all those who nine years ago felt that the most potent religious influence of their life had been withdrawn, will recognise in any fitting picture of Christ's Resurrection — which Mr Burne Jones, if any man, ought to be able to paint — the truest conceivable monument to Mr Maurice's faith and work. It was to that event that the whole of his life was at once a homely, a pathetic, and an exultant witness — homely, because it was the centre of his heart and home; pathetic, because it filled him with so profound and patient a pity for every human soul; and exultant, because it lifted him, grave and shrinking, and all but disclaiming (if only he could have disclaimed without injustice to the universality of the light it brought) his own personal share in the great inheritance of that divine event, to the serene exultation of the eternal life.
Spectator, 8 July 1881
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