"The Hallowed Bells"

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22435, 23 June 1938, Page 5 (Supplement)

"The Hallowed Bells"

Did you know that there are glass hells? Yes, and their sound is very sweet, too, but they are so fragile that nowadays very few are made. Once the Chinese used to hang them on', the eaves of their houses, but that too has passed. Most bells are made of bronze. Through the years bell-makers have experimented with all sorts of materials, but they all came to bronze in the end, for it gives the true, clear, ringing tone which every bell should have. Swords and plqughshares are as old as the human race, and so are bells, for all have been made wherever man has known the use of metal. In old Jerusalem golden bells ornamented the High Priest’s ceremonial garments, and the

Assyrians tied tassel-shaped bells to their horses’ harness. The Greeks and Romans used' them, but it was not until about the sixth century that they were brought into France and Britain. There still exists several ancient Irish and Scottish bells that date to the sixth century. They are made of thin plates of hammered iron, bent into a four-sided form, fastened with rivets and bronzed. At -first bell-casting was done in the monasteries, but in later centuries it was taken over by ordinary metal craftsmen. The first bells to be hung in steeples were very small, and it was not till the fourteenth century that they became really

(By Jean Ingram)

large. Their tone changed from a tinkle to a thunderous boom. The largest bell in the world is the famous Tsar Bell of Moscow, but it is a bell that has never been rung. It is 19ft high, 60ft round the rim, and weighs nearly 200 tons. It was cast in 1653, but came cracked from the foundry, and was never hung. Beautifully moulded' with raised metal-work,, it stands on a granite platform in a Moscow square, and there you may see it still, the cracked piece beside it, looking like an odd-shaped house with a. wideopen door. But Moscow also claims the largest bell in use. - It weighs 128 tons, much more than any of the English giants. The Great Bell of ' Peking is squated quaintly and is

heavily ornamented, and the biggest temple bell in Burma . claims the title of most perfect bell in the world. It has not one flaw. . In early times bells were consecrated with great pomp and ceremony, being antointed, blessed, sponsored, and duly christened. Thus we have “Great Tom,” “Bob Maximus,” or “Big Ben.” The whole town turned out and danced when the bells had a feast-day,, for they not only had personalities, but supernatural powers. They could drive away the plague, end storms and great winds. Listening to the deep vibrant voice of a bell, we can understand this superstition. To those frightened, mediaeval

folk, awake and shivering at night in their dark and crazy houses, the solemn, unhurried boom of the bell above the storm would be comforting and steadying. In war time its voice was defiant, and in time of pestilence protecting. Belief in the bells’ power was quite real, for in a certain edict of London Town are the words . . . “and let the hallowed bells be tolled in great tempests.” They, have always been- closely bound up in human life, being the messengers of weddings,, deaths, wars; warning one day and exhorting to .joy the next.- They tell-the time,, and they lay down a law—remember the Curfew Beil."' - " ■ Strangely enough the'art-of bellringing is not very old. The oldest guild that of St. Stephen’s, Bristol, goes back 'to 1574.- It is a curious art, some very fine effects being produced—for instance, when the clappers are covered in leather on one side, giving one dull and one clear peal. Carillons are now placed on a keyboard; even a straight peal is often rung by mechanical means. But bells retain their awesome and friendly personalities, and their voices ring true to their vibrant bronze—even in Kaiser Bell in Cologne Cathedral, which was cast from the metal of the' French guns taken in the Franco-Prussian war.