Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-23

captured the town Of Deux-Ports. in 1877,
they pulled the church bell from it's tower
and tried to break it into pieces. They
failed. Then they made a tremendous fire
under it and the whole army stood around
to see it melt. But the bell did not melt
1t sweated blood. An officer stained his
handkerchief with the blood. and sent it to
the King of France-and as that ends the
story, they presumably let the bell alone.
According to tradition in Switzerland,
all the bells of the Catholic churches of tina.
country 60 to Rome annually for the pur-
pose of confessing. They leave Thursday in
Passion week and return the following Sat-
urday. This legend is, of course, founded
on the fact that throughout the Catholic
world the bells are silent on those days.
In small town south of Hanover there
is bottomless pond of sacrifice, in which,
according to ancient lore, the pagan an
cestors of the inhabitants used to offer
sacrifice. A church bell, which, through
some neglect, had not received the usual
blessing, flew out of its tower and into the
pond, where it ever after remained chained
fast and guarded by ferocious dog. An
other unblessed bell was carried out of its
steeple by an awful storm and sunk into
a morass. The villagers sent a diver down
and he reported that the bell rested on a
table covered with black. They sent him
down a second time with a rope to secure
the bell, but when they pulled the rope up
they found the diver tied at the end-stone
dead.
The country folk in some parts of Ger
many believe that church bells have driven
away the dwarfs. In Holsten these small
people were SO troubled by the sound Of
church bells that they travelled out of the
country until they came to ferry. 1t
was stormy night, but they turned the
ferryman out of bed and made him row
them across the water. AS each little fell
low passed he dropped a grain of sand in
the ferryman's hat, which the leader had
placed on the grass, and the next morning
1t was heaped SO high with gold that the
old man lived on white bread ever after.
Superstitions also add their thrills to
house bells Here's an awful instance:
In house in German town the door bell
rang of its own accord Every member of
the family heard it except the wife of the
master, who was very Ill. AS the invoiun-
tary ringing Of house bell is always a
death warning, the husband forbade men,
ton of the omen to his wife for fear that it
would hasten dissolution. The suspense
lasted week and then the husband died
and the wife got well and married again.
rather Trout has given undying fame to
the bells of Shandon, and we hear their
tinkles and clangings in the poetry of Mil
ton, CoWper, Longfellow and Poe. And we
hear, too, the fatal bells of Fra Diavalo;
the goat bells Of Dinorah, the jingle OF that
highly accomplished lady who wore rings on
her fingers and bells on her toes and the
prophetic booming of those remarkable bells
of Bow Church that called on Dick Whit
tington to come back and be lord mayor of
London.
To skip back from tradition to prosaic
facts, who of US is deaf to the call of the
dinner bell?
Today's critics claim that the Changing
OF bells disturbs the sick within their sound
range.
There is also one critic who frankly ad-
mits that "he wouldn't mind the noise of
church bells if he could only see any mean
ing in their ringing.
Inc oelis ring out from their high, hooded steeple;
God bless the church; God bless the people,
God bless the kings who came from afar,
God bless the crib; God bless the star.
God bless the shepherds who watched in the morn,
God bless the hour that Christ born.
Killing klang
klang king
And that is the story the church bells ring!