bells in the Church of St. Stephen to be tolled. Slowly and solemnly the bells swung to and fro in their "old grey turrets high," sending their voices through the city, over the battlements, into the heart of the enemy's entrenchments, and arousing from their slumbers the beleaguering hosts. Awe-struck at those strange unearthly sounds, they fancied that invisible spirits, leagued for their destruction, were sweeping down upon them, and, with one long, wild shout of terror, they fled away to the forests, leaving the astonished citizens half crazy with joy at the success of their stratagem.

During the dark ages, Church Bells were made the object of superstitious veneration, and the practice of baptizing and christening them prevailed to a great extent. Indeed, a bell, duly sprinkled and crossed with holy water, was considered capable of warding off lightning, of despoiling the tempest of its might, and of purifying the air from all noxious taints. Great attention was also paid to their inscriptions; a very common one of which was,

"Funera plango, fulgura frango, sabbata pango;
Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, paco cruentos,"

showing that centuries ago their influence in benefitting man was considered as no trifling one. And, as I conceive, their utility has not diminished since. Though Franklin has invented a more effectual method of taming the lightning, and sensible men have ceased to repose confidence in holy water as a cholera preventive, Church Bells have yet a power to bless mankind.

Church spires have often been remarked as one of the most distinctive features of a New England landscape. They crown the hilltops and adorn the valleys through all the length and breadth of our land. And of this feature we, as New Englanders, are especially proud. Our Puritan ancestors had carefully noted the intimate connection there is between the observance of the Sabbath and national prosperity, and the erection of their own rude dwellings was but a preparatory step to the construction of a church. This was fitted up with all the elegance of which their forest life would admit, and bells were among the earliest of foreign luxuries introduced into the wilderness. Long before the red men had left our shores for the broader hunting-grounds and deeper forests of the west, they had become familiar with its sound, and superstitiously regarded it as the voice of the white-man's God, calling him up to worship. I have often fancied that the sound of the bell, as it echoed through the wild woods, starting the deer from his covert and the wild beast from his lair, must have fallen on the Indian's ear as an omen portentous of evil-as a dirge over the graves of his forefathers, and the deathknell of his race.

We are often told that the Yankee's home is ubiquitous, that where on the face of the earth, wealth is to be gained or sought, there is his abode. Grant it. And yet no race of men in the world more ardently love the land of their birth than does the New Englander. In whatever corner of the globe you meet him you find him ever singing,

"Dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood." And among all the remembrancers of home and home scenes, none has a greater power than the sound of the "Church-going bell." It is to him what the notes of the bag-pipe are to the Highlanders, or the Ranz des Vaches to the dwellers on the Alps. It reminds him of sunny hours far back in the past, ere manhood's cares had traced their furrows on his brow, ere the fever of life had inflamed his veins and his heart had grown weary of its tumultuous raging. It speaks to him of rest, not only of a temporary rest for his aching limbs, from the weariness of earth, but of an eternity of rest for his toil-worn spirit when the labor's of life are ended. It tells him of a home where, once returned, he "shall go no more out forever." Thoughts like these fall soothingly on his spirit, and give him a new energy with which to battle the trials of life.

The sun

I remember reading of a New Englander whose fortunes led him away to the heart of an African desert. From morning till mid-day he had toiled on his weary way over the burning sands, while a tropical sun gleamed fiercely down from a brazen sky. At last strength failed, his blistered feet refused their burden, and he sunk despairingly down to die. A dreamy stupor came over him, and with it came a vision of his boyhood's home. A quiet country village embosomed among the green hills of his fatherland rose up to view. looked smilingly out from the clear heavens-the feathered tribes rejoicing in his light, were pouring forth their tuneful notes through all the leaf-clad forest, and the lowing herds were grazing quietly along the sloping hill-sides. The hour of service had nearly arrived and the villagers were gathering in silence about the house of prayer. At length the bell in the tall steeple swung slowly on its axis, and the next moment its clear tones rung out on the passing breeze. That old Church Bell! How sweetly and familiarly fell its notes on the ear of his excited fancy! How thrilled they along every nerve and fibre of his exhausted frame, filling his heart with a strange, wild rapture, and pouring a flood of excited recollections on his memory! When he awoke to consciousness, they were still sounding on his ear, and tears, which all his misfortunes could not wring from him, were streaming down his cheek. He arose with new strength in his limbs, and fresh courage in his heart, and eventually succeeded in reaching once more that dear-loved home, and sitting again within the sound of that old Church Bell, which he resolved never again to leave.

Who that from infancy has dwelt beneath the shadow of a country church, has never learned to love its voice? Whose ear is so dull that he finds no music in its notes? Whose heart so hard as not to be affected by it? Ah, I envy him not, for he is a stranger to some of the purest and noblest sensibilities of our nature. He who can grow up amid such influences as surround him in all of our country villages, and yet conceive no attachment for the bell, whose voice weekly invites him to lay aside the cares and vexation of life, and join with his fellow mortals, in contemplating the attractions of a better world than this; must possess a spirit more insensible than I could ever wish mine to be. Sabbath after Sabbath for many years has that old bell

summoned to the sanctuary the worshipers of God, and yet its tone is as full and clear as when it first sounded there. And in obedience to that summons have the villagers gathered around the house of prayer. It is a motley multitude for our bell is no distinguisher of persons. Its echoes reach alike the lordly mansion of wealth and the lowly cottage by the wayside. There is the old man of hoary locks and palsied limbs, whose visits to the sanctuary are well-nigh over. He has lived on year after year, till he is alone in his generation, and like that decayed oak on the mountain, the next blast will prostrate him in the dust. There is the middle-aged man, with his family around him. Gladly he hails the Sabbath after the toils of the week, as an antitype of that rest which he hopes to gain when life's fitful fever is over. Youth, buoyant with hope, and prattling childhood, too, are there. The proud Pharisee sits side by side with the humble follower of the " contemned Nazarine," and wealth and poverty pass up the same consecrated aisle. The high and low, the rich and poor, meet and bow together around one common altar. And thus should it ever be. It is passing strange that the distinctions of earth should ever separate the disciples of Him who, while discharging his earthly mission, had not where to lay His head. It is strange that travelers on the same high way, bound to the same destination on the same errand, and having a common interest, should be kept so far asunder by the trifling accident of birth or fortune.

One sunny morning a few months since, thousands of bells rang out a glad and merry peal all over our Union. It was not the Sabbath, for the sound of busied multitudes was heard in all our streets. No general conflagration had broken forth, sweeping away in its march our cities and hamlets, and leving in their places a smouldering mass of ruins. No foreign foe was ruthlessly invading our territories and scattering around him desolation and death. Nor yet was it a peal of victory, blinding its notes with the orphan's wail, and the widow's moan, announcing that our arms had been triumphant abroad, and that the blood of hundreds of our enemies was fattening the soil. No, none of these. It was the anniversary of the birth of our Nation's liberty. That peal reminded us that seventy-three years ago that very day, in the State House at Philadelphia, a little band of freemen, unterrified by the hideous form of tyranny which frowned in upon them, stood up, and in the face of all men declared that these states were, "and of a right ought to be, free and independent." We were also reminded that those noble spirits with almost all their coadjutors had passed away from this earth, and that upon ourselves devolves the responsibility of transmitting to posterity, undiminished and unimpaired, the inheritance they left us, and which they periled their all to gain. And shall we do this? Then let our Church Bells sound on, as Sabbath after Sabbath passes by, till we become a nation in which Sabbath-breaking is unknown.

There is another circumstance that tends to increase our attachment to our bell, and that is, its use in paying the last honors to our departed friends. There seems to be a peculiar appropriateness in its use on such occasions. It summons us together on the Sabbath, that we

may learn to die, and why should not its voice attend our bodies to the grave? I have read graphic descriptions of burials at sea, where the mariner, "uncoffined and unknelled," sunk down with a sullen plunge to his cheerless resting-place among the slimy tenants of the "coral caves of ocean." Henceforth,

"The white foam of waves shall his winding-sheet be,

And winds in the midnight of winter his dirge."

There is sublimity in the idea of a burial like this. It is grand and awful to think of the long journey of the corpse down into the deep sea-caverns of its rest there, as centuries roll away, while, far, far above it, the tempest is raging in its wrath and goading to madness the foaming billows, as they surge in their might along, or, while the winds have sunk to sleep and naught ruffles the placid breast of old ocean save the dip of the sea gull's tireless wing. But with all the sublimity of the scene, there seems to be something wanting. I miss the solemn measured kell, nor can the roar of the "mournful sounding sea" supply the deficiency.

I have read of burials on the battle-field, where the hero, who had fallen amid the smoke and din of conflict, was consigned to his grave with all warlike honors.

"No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud they wound him,
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,

With his martial cloak around him."

The bugle's wailing note blended mournfully with the steady beat of the muffled drum, and the cannon's roar died sullenly away in echoes among the distant hills. I have often pictured to myself a scene like this, and thought it would be glorious thus to die; but to be buried thus, oh, no. I would wish for weeping friends to follow my funeral train, and sing a parting hymn above my grave. And more than all, I would wish for that old Church Bell to toll my funeral knell.

I have seen burials in the crowded city, where the funeral procession, attracting from the selfish multitude but a single glance-a transient inquiry, or a word of wonderment, as the passer-by learned that the deceased was his next door neighbor; moved slowly on through the crowded thoroughfare, till it entered the city of the dead, and earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," concluded the earthly sojourn of a soul. No bell uttered it notes of admonition to the living, as the dead was thus passing away, and the din and tumult of business sounded steadily on. And though the idea of a burial in the beautiful cemetry, among the wealthy and honored of the earth, was pleasant, yet I could not wish that my departure from their midst should be so lightly heeded by my fellow beings. I would rather that that old Church Bell, whose sound was among the first that attracted my infantile attention, and has since become as familiar to my ear as a household, word should announce to the thoughtful villagers, that another wearied mortal has paid the "debt of Nature," and teach them thus the great lesson of human frailty.

D. N. Y.

Pray-that the gorgeous loveliness of Earth

May bring high thoughts to sweep those magic strings ;

That tones, which have from rosy lips their birth,

May rise beyond the flight of eagles' wings;

That wooing winds, which rove without control,

And sweet, low murmurs from waves' gushing spray,

May wake those heavenly voices in the soul

That echo to the stars.-Thus let us pray

!

IV.

To conquer is sublime. It is sublime

To send stern Thought as messenger to Will.
Those heart-chords vibrate music's sweetest chime,
When Mind bids raging Passion-"Peace, be still!"
Aye!-that high power is god-like-to control

Those unchained elements, and mind's proud sway
In fellow-man!-'t is grand to bid the soul

Heavenward for aye! For this strength let us pray.