The Waynesburg Republican. [volume] (Waynesburg, Pa.) 1867-18??, 1867-12-25
s-~D-
BELLS.

The American Exchange and Re.
riep tells some very pretty facts and
fancies about bells, and we clipped the
following from the much longer article
published in that paper. Afterspeak-
ing of the sizes and virtues of various
renowned cncs, it goes on to say:
The bell at st, Filian, in Perthshire
cured lunacy. The patient was only
obliged to battle in the pool of the
saint and spend the night alone in the
chapel. If his disordered intellect
survived such an ordeal, the bell was
placed on his head with due ceremony
and forthwith his wits returned. An.
other bell was so attached to its home
that it extricated itself from the hands
ola thief, and returning, took up it
abode in its accustomed tower. Stran
ger still, Clothaire III. once carried of
a bell from Scissors, in Burgundy, tt
Paris. Arrived in the capital, beholt
a miracle! The bell was dumb moi
did its voice return till, being sent back
to its old quarters, it began to ring
spontaneously and joyously, while YET
seven miles from scissors, so loudly
that the people of the town recognized
the old familiar tones, and rushed
forth tumultuously to welcome it.
A curious circumstance is said to
have occurred at the death of the Duke
of Wellington, which would have been
written a miracle a hundred or two
years ago. Hearing of the death of
the old soldier, the Dean of Trim,
where the duke had passed many of
his carly years, and which he had rep
resented in Parliament, ordered that
the bells should be tolled. The tenor,
one of the finest andsweetestin ireland
was no sooner struck than it broke.
Upon examination it was found to be
cast in the very same yearof the Dukes
birth, 1850. ..
A legend of the Sinatic peninsula
has been preserved by INLAND, in his
poem "Die Verlorence Kirche," (Thc
Lost Chuch), whose peals ring out at
twilight through the forest:
from age toage those sounds arc heard,
Borne on the breeze at twilight hour;
From age to age no foot hath found
A pathway to the minister tower
Years ago, as the story goes, the lit
tie village ofRaleigh, Nottinghamshire
England, was engulfed, and the peas
ants, walking now with their children
on Sunday and holy day over the I'm
broken green, bend their cars to the
ground, and through the clover and
daisies they hear "sweet and far" the
chimes of the lost parish churcn.
What tales of wonder may have been
founded on the call of the campanero
or bell bird of Demarara, a snow-white
little creature which carries on its head
a tube nearly three inches long, which
it can fill with wind at pleasure; and
the tones from this feathery spire may
be heard through the deep forest dis
tancc of three miles, and sound like the
tolling ofa bell.
Father Prout wrote with deep affec-
ton of
"The sweet bells of Shandon,
That sound 50 grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee."
But the most touching story of at
tachment to the tones of bell is that
of the peal in the Limerick cathedral.
The bells were made for a convent in
Italy by an italian ofgreat skill in his
art, and SO dear to him did they be-
come that he took up his abode near
the convent cliff, where he could daily
hear the beloved chimes. But polit-
ical troubles arose the monks were
driven from their monastry, the Ital-
ian from his home, and the bells were
carried he knew not where. Years af-
terwards, in his wanderings, the Italian
came to Limerick. On calm bcauti-
full evening, as he sailed slowly up the
broad waters of the Shannon, suddenly
upon the golden stiffness broke the