British Minister Fills Historic Link Between Harvard Past and Present

Three hundred and fourteen years after John Harvard came to the New World from Southwark, England in 1637, another Englishman has come from the little British town to Boston. The reverend Mr. Colin Cuttell, Industrial Missioner from the Diocese of Southwark, left yesterday for Canada after spending almost a month in and around Cambridge.

Cuttell described himself as a "historic" link" in filling "the role of interpreter" between John Harvard's birthplace and the college he founded. He said that formerly "there was no personal link between the University and the parish of Southwark, "which is just as John Harvard knew it."

Harvard Clubs in 1904 erected a monument to the University's founder in the shape of the Chapel of St. John--commonly known as Harvard Chapel. The foundations of the chapel were laid nearly a thousand years ago. The building, however, was allowed to lapse into decay until restored in medieval style by interested Alumni.

Highlight of the chapel is a "three light" stained window given by Joseph H. Choate 1852, American Ambassador in London 1899 to 1905, and painted by the American artist John Le Farge.

Window Destroyed

"We had a little trouble with the glass when a 2,000 pound German blockbuster landed in the churchyard during the last war," Cuttell remarked ruefully. However the window was restored and rededicated October 22, 1949.

Cuttell said he was "quite overwhelmed by so much kindness on every side" during this his fifth visit to America. He said he hoped that his visit would fulfill Choate's hope which he expressed in 1907: "We reiterate the hope that all Harvard men will come to the rock from which they were hewn ... where the founder of this great university spent so much of his youth, and so add more links which bind the old country with the new."