The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-10-14 00:00:00

CHURCH BELLS AND HOW TO USE

THEM.

M the Church Congress held at Plymouth, the last topic of
the Congress—but by no means the least interesting, was the
discussion on "Church Bells and how to use them;' and
thanks to the Congress authorities were uttered in many
quarters for allowing a discussion to be taken thereon.
The Rev. W. Wigram, St. Andrew's, Hertford,
read the first paper. The care bestowed on the ring-
ing was ordinarily the measure of the care bestowed on
the church tower. The towers had been overlooked in
the great Church revival of recent years, so that there
was still in every county many given over to the jack-
daws and in a state of dirt which would not be tole-
rated in a gentleman's stable. He cited the old
diatich— 11,7?
"Singers and ringers'
Are home-bringers,"
to prove the social and domestic influences of bell-ring-
ing, and wished clergymen to regard a company of
ringers as a branch of the organization of a parish.
They would thus obtain good influences over those
whom they would not easily reach in any other way.
They would lay hold in the service of the Church of
one of the marked tastes of the day—that for athletics.
they would provide an amusement available at that
very time when raticnal amusement was hard to find—
viz., the long winter evenings; and finally they were
encouraging that which would lead to the more reverent
care of a portion of Gad's house—the church
tower. Latterly he had abandoned tuneeriug-
ging for changeieringing (the meaning of which
was explained by a subsequent speaker). The ring-
ing societies in London and other cities and local
companies in places where ringing had been practised
for generations, were the men who had preserved
change ringing, and they had done it by themselves
without any assistance from the classes of society.
"'he first thing to be done in an ordinary parish was to
teach the lads change-ringing by means of books—an
ear for music was net a necessity. He described the
method of dealing with the old ringers, who c )uld
ring an ordinary peal, and nothing more. Some of
thin introduced•drinking and smoking into the belfry, '
arid he explained the rules uhder. wh4b tha new sys-
tem should ba carried into effect. The highest and
most distinctly proper use of 'church bells was to:sum-
mon the worshippers and to do honour to holy times
and services. Yet it was indisputable that there was
a very great deal of Sunday ringing which had
about as much connexion with the day, with the
Church, and with the services as Tenterden
steeple had with the Goodwin sands, and no more.
Men who had the commend of their evenings met
together on Sunday to ring because it was their idle
day. They might attend service or not, but they
got together in the baltry sometimes in the morning,
generally in the late afternoon, because they had
nothing else to do. Such ringing was not Church work,
and was not an amusement which he could sanction.
But if they had a party of habitual worshippers who
met in the belfry to ring before church, who took their
places in the congregation, and aftcr service dismissed
the congregation with a joyous peal, such ringing was
to the parish at large that which the voluntary on the
organ was within the sacred walls. The indispensable
points were these—to connect the ringing with a ser-
vice, to keep it subordinate to that service, to prevent
the belfry from being the lounging place or playground
of non-worshippers, and to prevent the ringing from
degenerating into mere amusement. Oa Sunday ring-
ing must be confined to a few parishes' and those
exceptional; because the difficulties which surrounded
practice were very numerous, and especially in the
neighbourhood of towns very formidable.
Mr. C. A. W. Troyte, President of the Devonshire
Guild of Ringers, quietly read a paper, which, never-
theless, manifested a great deal of enththisam for the
subject. Few who were not ringers themselves, could,
he said, understand the great and never-ending charm
which bell-ringing had for the generality of those who
practised it. Even common round•ringers, who knew
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