The Bell
The importance of the ringing of the bell. What does it mean? On Wall Street it is the close of trading session, in school it mean class is ready to start, on the farm it means dinner is ready. There are many meanings.
The bell ringing has an emotional meaning for me. In the mid 1950's I was the minister of the Coatesville Christian Church in Coatesville, Indiana. In the early part of the decade on Good Friday a storm hit the area with a tornado which ravished the community killing 13 people and destroying much of the town. The tornado struck and destroyed all three of the churches in the community. The only remnant of the three churches was the bell from the belfry of the Christian Church.
It rained all day on Saturday and on Easter Sunday morning the sun was shining.
Several men moved the bell to the community park across the street from the Christian Church, and they began to ring it. The people from all three churches and others who had not attended a church in years left their homes and started gathering in the park. On that Easter Sunday morning the new beginning was started for the community of Coatesville.
Now, fast forward a few years to my ministry in Coatesville. The church was rebuilt except for the belfry. We decided to add the belfry and sent the bell to be repaired. After the bell was ready to ring again we announced that there would be a re-dedication of the bell. The whole community came, filling the church, overflowing into the church yard and even filled much of the area across the street in the park.
When the bell rang there was a great silence that came upon those in attendance, and there was not a dry eye to be seen. The bell ringing reminded the people of their town which was destroyed and arose from the dead.
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Something About Bells
Bells came into use in our churches as early as the year 400, and their introduction is ascribed to Paulinus, bishop of Nola, a town of Campania, in Italy. Their use spread rapidly, as in those unsettled times the church-bell was useful not only for summoning the faithful to religious services, but also for giving an alarm when danger threatened. Their use was sanctioned in 604 by Pope Sabinian, and a ceremony for blessing them was established a little later. Very large bells, for church towers, were probably not in common use until the eleventh century.
In various museums of Europe many curious old bells are preserved, and particularly in Scotland and Ireland fine specimens may be seen of the ancient monastic bells of the Celtic abbeys. These are sometimes square in shape, and are made of bronze or iron sheets riveted together. Their sound, consequently, must have been discordant and far less powerful than that of our modern bells.
Bells were introduced into the Eastern churches about the ninth century and some of the largest in the world [were] to be found in the great cathedrals of Russia...
