The Great London Exhibition of 1851: The Crystal Palace

By Elizabeth Prata

The other day I wrote about transparent gold How, when gold is stripped down to a few molecules at the nano-level, it becomes transparent.

As I worked through the verses in Revelation, and checked old-time Commenters to see how they handled the Revelation verses about the transparent gold in the New Jerusalem (because they didn’t know about nano-tech back then), I came across Barnes’ Notes on it.

Albert Barnes lived from 1798 – 1870. He was an American theologian, clergyman, abolitionist, temperance advocate, and author. He’s best known for his extensive Bible commentary and notes on the Old and New Testaments, published in a total of 14 volumes in the 1830s, says Wikipedia. You can read his Commentary online, here.

Barnes was alive and an adult when the 1851 London Exposition occurred.

The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its 990,000 square feet exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet long, with an interior height of 128 feet, and was three times the size of St Paul’s Cathedral.

The 60,000 panes of glass were manufactured by the Chance Brothers. The 990,000 square foot building with its 128 foot high ceiling was completed in thirty-nine weeks. The Crystal Palace boasted the greatest area of glass ever seen in a building. It astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights. Wikipedia

The Industrial Revolution was surely a marvel for the people living in that time. For them to witness the construction of such a magnificent building, the likes of which had never been accomplished before, must have been a memorable moment! All that glass…no need for interior illumination…wow.

Just as we in this day and age still struggle with some of the descriptions in the Bible (Cherubim in the shape of a wheel within a wheel with eyes all around, anyone?) so also the old time people had a hard time envisioning describing what the New Jerusalem will look like. Until that is, The Crystal Palace was built.

The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. (Revelation 21:18).

Revelation 21:18 Commentary by Albert Barnes, “Barnes’ Notes”-

Perhaps the reflection of the sunbeams from the “Crystal Palace,” erected for the late “industrial exhibition” in London, would convey a better idea of what is intended to be represented here than anything which our world has furnished. The following description from one who was an eyewitness, drawn up by him at the time, and without any reference to this passage, and furnished at my request, will supply a better illustration of the passage before us than any description which I could give:

“Seen as the morning vapors rolled around its base – its far-stretching roofs rising one above another, and its great transept, majestically arched, soaring out of the envelope of clouds – its pillars, window-bars, and pinnacles, looked literally like a castle in the air; like some palace, such as one reads of in idle tales of Arabian enchantment, having about it all the ethereal softness of a dream. Looked at from a distance at noon, when the sunbeams came pouring upon the terraced and vaulted roof, it resembles a regal palace of silver, built for some Eastern prince; ‘when the sun at eventide sheds on its sides his parting rays, the edifice is transformed into a temple of gold and rubies;’ and in the calm hours of night, when the moon walketh in her brightness, the immense surface of glass which the building presents looks like a sea, or like throwing back, in flickering smile, the radiant glances of the queen of heaven.”

A Christian’s future is to live in the Crystal Palace of God, glittering and bright, filled with the glory of God

I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; (Revelation 21:22-26)