The model of the Tabernacle housed at Glencairn Museum is remarkable for several reasons. It was built over a ten-year period, beginning in 1921, and was designed to be part of an educational program for the children at Bryn Athyn Church School. The borough of Bryn Athyn, just outside of Philadelphia, was settled in the 1890s as a New Church community. The Tabernacle project was conceived of and directed by the Rt. Rev. George de Charms, whose book The Tabernacle of Israel (1969) describes the building of the model and its religious significance in detail.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this project is that it was crafted with extraordinary reverence through the efforts of an entire school of little children. First, the children were prepared with a yearlong series of special worship services, during which they learned about the Tabernacle's structure and significance. At these services the children were asked to bring one piece of precious jewelry each, as a donation from their families to help fund the project. The process was intended to reenact the donations given by the Israelite families for the original Tabernacle (Exodus 35:20-29). The children's donations, together with an initial contribution of $15, were enough to pay for the materials, including the gold, silver and brass metalwork (the total cost was calculated to be around $1,500). One participant recalls with humor the frustration she felt as a little girl at having to give up her favorite silver spoon for the project!

Children in all eight grades worked on the project and, because it took a total of ten years to complete, many of the children participated over the span of their education. Another woman, now 84, recalls making her donation of silver as a kindergartner, and then years later in seventh grade working on sewing tucks in the curtains. The labor was divided evenly between the boys and girls: the boys did the woodwork in their "manual training class" and the girls did the sewing.

While the children worked hard at making various parts of the Tabernacle model, it is clear that teachers or hired professional craftsmen created much of the final product. The gold lampstand and other metal work, for instance, were created by an expert goldsmith under the supervision of Fred J. Cooper. Thorsten Sigstedt, a sculptor, carved the figures of the priests and Levites. And the curtains woven with cherubim had to be made by an altar-cloth company in Stockholm, as theirs was the only loom that could weave with real gold thread.

The Tabernacle model is also remarkable because of the attention given to religious meaning in each of its parts. Bryn Athyn Church School is part of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, founded on the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). According to this perspective, every detail of the structure had a deeper meaning and corresponded to a spiritual process within the human mind. Therefore, the children who built this model were not only learning Biblical history, but were studying a complex set of religious symbols as well. The New Church interpretation of the Tabernacle is explained in more detail on a separate page, and the General Church Office of Education has its own site about the Tabernacle, designed with children and families in mind.

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