Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/96

68 Built in the Italian Renaissance style, the interior of this church is carried out with the end in view of impressing the audiences with the beauty and strength of the design. The great auditorium, with its high-domed ceiling, supported on four arches springing from the tops of great stone piers, contains about one mile and a half of pews.

The dome surmounting the building is more than twice the size of the dome on the State House, having a diameter of eighty-two feet and a height of fifty-one feet.

The top of the dome is two hundred and twenty-four feet above the street, and reaches an altitude twenty-nine feet higher than that of the State House.

The old church at the corner of Falmouth and Norway Streets, with a seating capacity of twelve hundred, built twelve years ago, will remain as it was, and Mrs. Eddy's famous room will be undisturbed.

The Readers' platform is of a beautiful foreign marble, and the color scheme for all the auditorium is of a warm gray, to harmonize with the Bedford stone which enters so largely into the interior finish.

The great organ is placed back of the Readers' platform and above the Readers' special rooms. It has an architectural stone screen and contributes not a little to the imposing effect of the interior.

Bedford stone and marble form the interior finish, with elaborate plaster work for the great arches and ceilings. The floors of the first story are of marble.

There are twelve exits and seven broad marble stairways, the latter framed of iron and finished with bronze, marble, and Bedford stone.

Bronze is used in the lighting fixtures, and the pews and principal woodwork are of mahogany.