Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1891 — ALL ABOUT CHURCH BELIS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALL ABOUT CHURCH BELIS.

Some Facte Concerning Evangelista of the Iron Throat and Sovereigns or the Storm. The bell tolls on in solemn mockery of all protest Many it It has a history—old as civilization—and abounding in romance and. poetry. Passing through Troy, N. Y., the other day, I came upon a bell foundry where many of the great bells of the country were made, says a writer in the Philadelphia Press. The bell-maker, a very affable gentleman, with some of the cheerful’ cadences of his own manufactures in. his voice, was engaged in the delicate and difficult task of tuning and selecting bells for a chime. In the course of our chat he told me many interesting facts. • - It is not known who cast the firstbell. Some one gravely avers that. Tubal Cain, “the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron,” formed the sounding metal into a rude kind of bell. The best that can be said for this bold statement is that Tubal Cain has not contradicted it. Perhaps the idea of a bell was first suggested by striking upon pots and kettles. Hence the most ancientform of the large bell was that of the Indian gong or of the caldrons of Dodona. When large bells came into use is

purely a matter of conjecture. TheChinese employed rude bells of a large size at least 2,000 years B. C., but, these were made of pieces of metal welded together, and were nearlysquare in shape. Religious assemblies were convoked among the Jewsand the Egyptians by the trumpet. The Turks at first struck a wooden, board or iron plate with a hammer,, but now the muezzin or Mohammedan crier with solemn effect proclaims from the lofty minaret the hour of prayer. The early Christian church, gathered in silence. Persecution, stalked abroad. The bell that had called them to worship would simultaneously have rung their death-knelj. It was not until the sixth century, at least, that the bell became a feature in the Christian church, and with it came the gracefully ascending spirethat conducts man’s orisons to theskies. Although the English have Maimed that a chime cannot be properly rungby machinery, Yankee ingenuity has invented a contrivance which produces as good music as one hears in. England. In that country there is a man in charge of each bell. In America church bells are sounded by means of chains and rods leading from the ends of the clappers and passing through pulleys to the posision of the ringer, where they ar& attached by movable straps to manuals in the form of levers, which are operated by a single player. Bells are much used in Japan, especially in the ceremonies of worship. They are suspended in low towers, near the temples, and are sounded by means of wooden beams swinging from the roof, to which straw ropes are attached. When one enters a temple in Japan he puHs this rope and rings the bell, thus arousing the deity, who is wide awake when the worshiper comes into his presence.

A JAPANESE BELL.