The Washington herald., 1914-09-17
The Chimes of Antwerp.
BY EMORY J. HAYNES.

Who can describe the music of chimes? 1t must
be heard. Words do not convey musical sounds.
Yet every tourist has it back in letters how he
or she stood breathless in the square before the
ancient church and drank in the melody of the far
famed bells Not only are the bells themselves of
exquisite tone and the harmony perhaps the most
successful in the civilized world; the skill of the
ringers is also mastery.
Training ringer is a cOnsummate schooling,
and the bell ringer counts it his profession. 1t is his
daily work, and so long he is able to work the
dulcet notes which ring out the lowlands Of
Holland invite travellers and are by means mere
poetic adorning, since they are a valuable money
making asset
The quaint old town itself behts the chimes. The
music of chime of bells seems always distant. The
vast air world reaches the stars and are ancient
Floating down as if from infinite space, the notes
seem to come from ever so far and from ever so
long ago If these bells were actually duplicated
in some smart Western city OF ours they would
lose half their charm But in Antwerp the great ff
teenth century speaks again by the voice of the bells
Then was the city to Europe about what New York
is to America Its commercial supremacy by the
North Sea made it the same as the Adriatc made
Venice. And that all this power by wealth has so
largely departed embalms the town The chimes
its lonely requiem. They sing of Rubens, whose
Descent from the Cross adorns the cathedral walls
and of Vandyke and other masters Flemish.
Perhaps the barbarian aviators will be as open to
the poetic as the French revolutonists. In all
their frenzy which despoiled other cathedrals and
St. Jacques tomb the French mob spared the grave
of Rubens For myself l am glad that have heard
the chimes. Thousands of other Americans will say
as much
Would it not. however be mournfu to stand in
the Place de Mere, that street of unrivaled beauty,
say on Christmas night two years from now and
the chimes were fallen2 Down through the dumb
steepe windows blackened by fire, the sweet bells
tangled when German Zeppelin destroyed the very
house of Christ But there thousands of reverent
memories which can preserve long on the earth the
glory of the chimes As long as we live the chimes
will be ringing
The American who lives in town no more closely
built objects to the steepe bell He protests that it
disurbs his nap and wounds the nerves of invalids
The church bell has been driven from New York,
almost There are few expensive chimes, and what
we have do not ring much more than on a festal
Sunday. The explanation does not seem so very
obvious.
In the old rural bell the church that faces the
village green there is yet tongue of song that calls
to prayer AS the bell is subject to atmospheric con-
ditions, the bell of the countryside is of thousand
voices The winds play with it, and can even silence
it for moment and then increase its volume They
can watt il from to west and make il run half
an octave The air of mountains is the saving servant
of many convent chime. Whereas the sea is no
friend to bell, but its sitting foe the rolling land
scape is always kind to bells
What a striking difference between bell buoy
in sea roadstead, melancholy and often throttled
and the bell a country schoolhouse above living
fields! Even the cattle become responsive and look
up from their feeding. One would say the OK and
the workhorse know the Sabbath bell Does if not
say "No work today" There is in its hallowed
tones the gospel of peace and repose .....
If rich man would devote some memorial TO
himself that would fail to keep his name alive
let him hang sweet chimes in the steeple of the
church which his parents loved. Men would Ioot
up from the pow at its call and look down with
thanks as its salutaton rolled down the vale The
natal air would be written over with the donors
name and no vandal would make it the mark for |
destruction Rings bells that call to prayer the
earth around, and let us have peace to hear them.
Some of the papers sympathizing with the
Harrisburg child who has FIVE living grandmother.