THE
USE AND ABUSE
OF
THE CHURCH BELLS,
WITH
Practical Suggestions concerning them.
BY
WALTER BLUNT, A.M.,
A PRIEST OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
LONDON:
JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET.
MDCCCXLVI.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY JOSEPH MASTERS,
ALDERSGATE STREET.
It has fallen to the writer’s lot, in the Divine dispensation, to beentrusted with the care, or joint care, of very many parishes invarious parts of England: and he knows not any one externalmatter, common to them all, and to the neighbourhoods surroundingthem, which has caused him more pain than the ordinary use, andthe almost utter neglect for their own proper purposes, of theChurch Bells.
Indeed, so much is the proper use of these holy instruments ofedification (for such they really are) generally lost sight of, thatamong all the New Churches which have been builded during thelast few years, scarcely any have more than one Bell; a greaternumber being considered a vain superfluity, a kind of ecclesiasticalluxury—or, by deeper thinkers, a link between the Church and theworld (and that often in its fiercest contentions, vainest hours, andmost carnal aspect) which we may well be rid of.
In our older Churches, the position of the Belfry (on the floor ofthe Church, immediately communicating with the Nave, generallylaid entirely open to it, often, too, having no other entrance, andnot unfrequently forming the passage between the Nave and[4]Chancel) is sufficient to point out to every thinking person in theparish the very sacred character which was attached to their Bellswhen they were first hung, the holy purposes to which they werededicated—and how solemn a matter, how truly a service ofAlmighty God, the Ringing of them was then esteemed.
In other Churches, almost always of a later date, we find theoriginal position of the Ringers at a higher level, upon a floor inthe Tower. But the Belfry was still laid open, by an arch, to thebody of the Church—thus yielding evidence that the Ringing of theBells was still esteemed a very sacred thing.
In many Churches of more recent foundation, but chiefly in suchas have been builded within the last 200 years, we meet with a sadevidence of a decay of this feeling, or rather principle; in thatthe Belfry is placed high up in the Tower, and quite shut out fromthe body of the Church:—until, at last, it has come to pass (andthis, too, is the case in some Churches, of 150 years old) that theBelfry is most frequently entirely omitted; and Churches of considerablesize and pretensions are erected with only a single Call-Bell.
But while this result has been coming to pass—(and it has beennot a little hastened by mercenary hearts and sacrilegious hands,in the robbery of many of our older Churches of their Bells)another change has gradually been taking place of a still moremischievous character. In various records which have come downto us, bearing date about the times of the Reformation, referenceis often made to, and sufficient evidence is given of, the superstitioususage of Church Bells: and there is, too, room for