The Blessing of Bells in the Romish Church is a most extraordinary piece of superstition. They are said to be consecrated to < Sod, that he may bestow upon them the power, not of striking the ear only, but also of touching the heart. When a bell is to be blessed, it is hung up in a place where there is room to walk round it. Beforehand, a holy-water pot, another for salt, napkins, a vessel of oil, incense, myrrb, cotton, a basin and ewer, and a crumb of bread, arc prepared. There is then a procession from the vestry, and the officiating priest, having seated himself near the bell, instructs the people in the holiness of the action he is going to perform, and then sings the Miserere, Next, he bless- es some salt and water, and offers a prayer that the bell may acquire the virtue of guarding Christians
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from the stratagems of Satan, of breaking the force of t impests, and raising devotion in the b art. etc. He
then mixes salt and water, and, crossing the hulls thrice, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, pronounces over each, "God he with you." This being done, he dips the aspergillum, or sprinkler, in the holy water, and with it washes the hell; during this ablution psalms are sung. After this, a ves- ge] containing what they call oil for the infirm, is ' v the dean, into whieh the officiating priest dip. the thumb of his right hand, and applies it to the middle of the bell, signing it with the sign of the cross. The twenty-eighth psalm being then sung, tli' hell is marked with seven other crosses, during w hieh the priest honors the bell with a sort of baptism, consecrating it in the name of the Trinity, and naming some particular saint, who stands godfather to the hell, and from that time it bears his name. It is then perfumed with incense and myrrh, which, in a prayer used on the occasion, is called the dew of the Holy Ghost. For the full forms, see Migne, Liturgie Catholique, p. 363; Boissonnet, Diet, des Ceremonies, i, 880. The practice of consecrating and baptizing bells is a mod- ern invention. Baronius refers the origin to the time of John XIII, A.D. 968, who consecrated the great bell of the Lateran Church, and gave it the name of John. The practice, however, appears to have pre- vailed at an earlier period ; for in the capitulars of Charles the Great it is censured and prohibited. The rituals of the Romanists tell us that the consecration of bells is designed to represent that of pastors ; that the ablution, followed by unction, expresses the sane- tification acquired by baptism ; the seven crosses show that pastors should exceed the rest of Christians in the graces of the Holy Ghost ; and that as the smoke of the perfume rises in the bell, and tills it, so a pas- tor, adorned with the fulness of God's spirit, receives the perfume of the vows and prayers of the faithful.
The Tolling of bells at funerals is an old practice. It was a superstitious notion that evil spirits were hovering round to make a prey of departing souls, and that the tolling of bells struck them with terror. In the Council of Cologne it is said, " Let bells be 11 sed, as the trumpets of the church militant, by which the people are assembled to hear the word of God, the clergy to announce his mercy by day, and his truth in their nocturnal vigils ; that by theirsound the faithful may be invited to prayers, and that the spirit of devotion in them may he increased." The fathers have also maintained that daemons, affrighted sound of bells calling Christians to prayer, would flee away, and when they fled the persons of tie- faithful would be secure; that the destruction of li (htnings and whirlwinds would be averted, and the spirits of the .storm defeated. Durand says, in his Rational of the Roman Church, "that for expiring persons bells must lie tidied, that people may put up their prayers. This must be done twice for a woman and thrice I'm- a m in ; for an ecclesiastic as many times as he had orders; and at the conclusion a peal Of all tin- b 11- must be given, to distinguish the qual- ity of tie- persons for whom the people are to offer up their prayers." The uses of bells, according to the Romish idea, are summed up in the following distich, oft n inscribed on bells:
rum; plebem v„cn; contjreqo clerum; ''■'"" ' •<„,!„: festaqu honoro."
"I praise the true God; I call the people; I assemble tin- clergy; I Umenl the dead; I drive away infec- tion; I honor tin- festivals." The following are the n "in-, kind-, and offices of bells used in churches and "religious hous is:" l. Squtila or scilla, a little hell hung in tie- refectory, near tie- abbot's seat, which he ran: h. signify the end of tin- repast. It was also used to procure Bilence when there was too much noise. '-'■ Cymbcdum, need in the cloister. 3. Nola, in the choir. 1. Oampan i, in tin- Campanile (q. v.); perhaps
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used when there was only one church-bell. 5. Signum, in the church-tower. The Campana sancta, vulgarly called in the country the " Sance-bell," was rung when the priest said the Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dommus Deus Sabaoth. Matthew Paris says that it was forbid- den to ring the bells during a period of mourning; and the Church of Rome retains to this day the cus- tom of not suffering the bells to sound during the pe- riod from Good Friday to Easter Day. For an amus- ing paper on "Bells," see Southey's Doctor, vol. i.— Bergier, s. v. "Cloche;" Bingham, Orig. Eccles. bk. viii, ch. vii, § 15; Martene, De Ant. Eccles. Uitibus, t. ii; Landon, Eccles. Dictionary, s. v. "Bells;" Cole- man, Ancient Christianity, ch. xiii, § 9; Quarterly Re- view (Lond.), Oct. 1854, art. ii.