Muriel MacDonald, looking at her sister, smiled gently. All her love was centred in Ella, and she rejoiced in her joy, but Coll turned his eyes towards far Antrim, his thoughts upon his dark-haired cousin.

Away on the Mull of Oa, on a high steep cliff, stood his own castle, Dunad. There he had spent most of the time since parting from Grace. Daily he had woven mind-pictures in which the lovely daughter of Antrim figured; daily he had paced Dunad battlements, gazing longingly over the sea to the faintly visible hills of green Ireland, as if the thurible of his heart could fling its incense of adoration across the dividing waters; and daily, hourly, his love for Grace had grown, till now, at the sight of Hector MacLean's happiness in his accepted love, he felt a pang of keenest envy.

(To be continued.)

LOVE CONFIDENT

O LOVE that does not doubt!

As lilies red,

With splendour clothed about,

More regal than the crownèd head

Of Juda's King:

O lilies red,

That are not worried,

Knowing that Love your robe and crown will bring.

O Love that does not fret!

As sparrows cheap,

That fulsome harvest get

As sure as men that moil and weep

To get them fed:

O sparrows cheap

That never sow nor reap,

Knowing that Love will heed your plea for bread.

HUGH F. BLUNT.

S

BELLS AND THEIR ORIGIN

By SIMON KEANE

How many a tale their music tells

Of youth and home, and that sweet time

When first we heard their soothing chime.-MOORE.

OME people tell us that if we wish to find the first parent

of our ponderous, deep-toned bell, we must go far back to the beginning of time, and look for it amid the varied forms, which strewed the forest glade that served as workshop to the renowned worker of metals, Tubal Cain. Others, with imagination not less creative, solemnly inform us that Noah was wont to ring the bell to summon his ark-builders to work. Such theories, we fear, savour rather of the nursery. However, though we cannot historically prove that the bell was one of the many forms mirrored in the creative brain of the first of metalworkers, nevertheless, we claim for it an honoured niche amid the remnants of antiquity, since we find it mentioned in some of the oldest historical documents which we possess.

Experts in comparative religion tell us that, in the rites of the Egyptian deity Osiris, some devotee was wont to rattle a metallic instrument, which may have been regarded as a legitimate ancestor of our present bell. This instrument, or "sistrum," as it is called, consisted of a thin oval band of metal attached to a handle. In this band were inserted, somewhat loosely, a number of little metal rods bent at either end, which lay across the opening of the band. Of other sounding instruments that might with any show of reason be called "bells," ancient Egypt has yielded up no trace.

Winging our flight from the land of the Nile to that of the Tigris and Euphrates, we find that, in the palace of Nimrod at Nineveh, the antiquarian Layard has unearthed some little bronze relics which he claims to have been bells.

But bells had not to await the dawn of Christianity to find a place-however insignificant-in the worship of the true God. The great Law-Giver Himself prescribed that they were to be attached to the garments of the high priest (Exodus xxviii. 33). It is far from easy, at this date, to determine what exactly was the shape of those little bells. Some hold that they were nothing more than mere dangling ornaments; and their contention would

seem to be borne out by Holy Writ itself: for Moses, having ordered that bells be attached to the high priest's robes, continues, "There shall be a golden bell and a pomegranate, and again a golden bell and a pomegranate." From these words it is clear

that the golden bell needed no tongue of its own to produce sound, its constant collision with the pomegranates at its side was quite sufficient to cause the required noise. Nor was it only as an ornament to the priestly robe that the bell found favour, among the Israelites. Schoettgenius tells us, in his treatise on ancient vestments, that they were used to adorn the garments of the Jewish women, and even those of the youth of both sexes. Indeed, some would have us believe that they were so common among the chosen people, that they formed a regular part of the caparison of their horses! This latter contention, however, seems scarcely credible. It is based on the rendering of Zacharias xiv. 20, found in the Revised Version. The Hebrew word "metsilloth" has been there translated "bell." The Douay, on the contrary, has rendered it as meaning “bridle," and in doing so is in harmony with such different authorities as the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the writer in the Jewish Encyclopædia. Of the use of bells of a larger kind among the Hebrews we can find no trace, and yet, strange to say, their skill in metallurgy is well known to have been highly developed. Perhaps when the dust of ages has been completely cleared away, further developments will be revealed to the delighted gaze of the lover of bells.

Leaving behind the mysterious East, the campanologist now turns to the classic shores of Greece. The world-wide fame of Hellenic culture leads him to expect a rich harvest of discovery, but disappointment awaits him. Bells indeed the Greeks had, and even in abundance, but their knowledge of bell-casting cannot be compared with their otherwise unrivalled skill in the artistic treatment of metals.

Nor has pagan Rome left us any advance worthy of record. The "petasus" was known both in Greece and in Rome. It was, however, rather a gong than a bell. The Athenian used it to summon customers to the fish-market, and the Roman to announce that the public baths were heated. Another bell largely used in both centres of pagan civilisation was the codon." It was not unlike a handbell in shape, and fulfilled many an important function in Greek and Roman life. It had a prominent position among the ornaments of the triumphal car, it summoned the guests to dinner, and it kept the night sentinel awake at his post. At the siege of Xanthippe, it gave the alarm when some unfortunate

human being had been caught in the net, which Brutus had sunk in the river to capture all who tried to escape by water from the beleaguered town. Juvenal tells us that the Romans were wont to ring it during an eclipse, possibly—as the Chinese do to-dayto frighten away the big black beast that was devouring the moon.

Some writers mention a rather interesting use of the "tintinnabulum" amongst the ancients. They tell us that the "clepsydra " had an apparatus connected with it, which rang a bell at regular intervals, thus taking the place of a modern grandfather's clock. The supposition is a feasible one, but we can find no authorities to support it. One writer has quoted Lucian. But on consulting the original, the only reference to the clepsydra which we have been able to find is in Hippias, and certainly in that context there is no clear reference to a bell. Before taking leave of Rome and Greece, we must not forget to inform the reader that according to Suetonius, Augustus had a bell suspended in front of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

In our brief survey of pagan and Jewish antiquities, we have seen that among the various bells considered, there was none which could claim to be a church bell. We are sometimes told that India was in possession of bells long before the Westerns dreamt of them, but the contention can scarcely be substantiated. The statement of Mr. Thompson in his Etymons of English Words, where he says, under the article "bell," that large bells were affixed to ancient Hindoo temples, being rung in order to frighten the evil spirits of the air, is amply contradicted by the nature of Hindoo architecture itself. There is nowhere a trace of a tower, where a beneficent bell could battle with evil spirits. The opinion, that the huge bell at Peking far antedates any of our large church bells, is as yet but a dreamy hypothesis, and must be regarded as not proven.

It is only under the fostering influence of the Catholic Church that the bell attained that beauty of tone, and that grace of figure which the loving labours of artistic genius have given it. But the Church was not young in her career when she enlisted the bell in her service. Its feeblest tinkle in the deep silence of the catacombs would have been a danger to the faithful, a signal to their enemies. The wooden "tabula' did service for the Church in those days, as it did also for the monks of the desert, and for the Greek Church at a much later date, and as it does at present for us during the last days of Holy-Week. Indeed, it was with difficulty that the faithful were prevailed upon to substitute the bell for the tabula,

so fraught was this latter with the hallowed memories of their glorious martyrs. Of this hesitation we have a touching description in the letters of Amalaire, Bishop of Lyons, in 837.

Durandus describes the gradual introduction of bells into ecclesiastical use. The "squilla" was used in the refectory, the "cymbalum" in the cloister, the "campana" necessitated the building of the "campanile," whilst the "signum" boomed in the tower. We read that Pope Sabinian or Sabinus had the various divisions of the day announced by means of a bell; his purpose being to remind the laity of the times for the recitation of the canonical hours. The bells of St. Stephen's at Orleans "rolled back" King Clothair from the city walls in 610. The king had intended to besiege the town, but the clangour of the bells so frightened him and his army, that they dreaded to enter a place containing such a monster! Everyone knows the "clog-an-edachta," or Bell of the Testament, better known as St. Patrick's Bell. Authorities, such as Margaret Stokes, Dr. Reeves, Mr. Milligan, or Professor Bury, do not dispute the tradition that it belonged to St. Patrick himself. Indeed, we have strong evidence that bells were commonly used by our earliest Irish missionaries. There is proof available, too, that when they crossed over to Scotland, they did not forget to bring the familiar "clog" with them. Glaswegians, anxious to establish their own claim to an early acquaintance with the use of bells, have but to consult the city arms, in which St. Mungo's bell occupies so prominent a place.

To the Church, therefore, belongs the honour of popularising the use of the bell; hers also is the claim to have placed it on high, in order to summon her children from far and near.

But although authorities are agreed that the Church is responsible for the introduction of the large tower bell, they are by no means unanimous in answering the further questions: Who was the first to introduce them? and in what particular part of the Church were they first used? Walfred Strabo and Polydore Vergil have assigned the honour to St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in Campania, and in doing so have had a considerable following. Rev. Mr. Gatty says, "that with Pope Sabinus or his age [the honour] must rest." Father Herbert Thurston, S.J., is" strongly tempted to incline " to the view, that the ancient hand bell of the Irish missionary was the modest forefather of our beautiful chimes.

The great argument in favour of the traditional view, is that, from the sixth century onwards, writers have used the word