“I Call the Living – I Mourn the Dead – I Break the Lightning”*

by John M. Joyce (January 2013)

William Cowper,
'The Task' (Book VI, Line 6 onwards).

Then, to bed and on to Christmas Day.

They have tones that touch and search
One sound to all, yet each
Lends a meaning to their speech,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
(March 12, 1882.)

After our meal we all trooped across to the church and gathered in the ringing chamber. Clyde offered Bishop Nathan the treble which he willingly accepted and with that the ringers took their places, with Clyde taking the great tenor bell. I am an indifferent ringer so I merely watched as they started.

Their brazen lips are learned teachers,
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the Law,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Mrs. Promus interrupted my introspection at that moment by showing Clyde Restis into the study.

George Herbert,
Miraculously, no-one was seriously hurt in the accident. some sixty young men all dressed in army fatigues clambered out of the vehicles through any opening wide enough to take them. There were cuts, some quite deep, and bruises, but nothing beyond the skills of our good doctor, Alexis Conterant, who attended to them in the dining room of the rectory which was the nearest warm dry place that I could think of to put everybody.

Old Tom had come out of his house at the bottom of Church Row just to see what all the fuss and noise was about and Clyde had promptly pointed out to him that since he was already out he may as well stay out and make himself useful and help with the ringing so Tom had wandered up to the rectory and was busy helping Mrs. Promus to make tea and food for all the hungry young mouths. I must admit that I was very worried about feeding such a multitude when such bad road conditions made it impossible to replenish stocks.

As I was worrying about that in my study Clyde came in accompanied by seven of the young army men. He was smiling broadly,

I was flabberghasted.

I started the Mass with the bells still ringing out the old year. As I got to the Words of Institution at midnight, or thereabouts, the bells fell silent. I Elevated the Host. I elevated the Chalice. The service bell rang out to let the whole parish know. The bells restarted their joyful progression and rang in 2012. I communicated a congregation that was somewhat larger than I had expected. It seems that the bells being rung right royally had peaked the curiosity of many of my parishioners in the village and they had turned out in those difficult conditions in order to find out what was going on. The ringers communicated three at a time as they were relieved. Many of the young soldiers had also come across from the rectory and a lot of them took communion, also.

Thomas Hood,
Footnotes:

4) December 6th.

5) Ecce Agnus Dei. Ecce qui tollit peccata mundi, which echoes the words of John the Baptist in John 1:29, This always used to be said by the priest at the Elevation of the Host but usually no longer is.

7) Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

8) From the Book of Common Prayer (1549) of the Church of England.

9) A Surprise Royal is a Surprise peal, one called Bristol in this case, in a treble bob method (when the treble bell hunts forward four and back two, such as, just for example, 12123434565678788787656543432121) and is Royal because it is rung on ten bells.

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/39638 .

11) Up until the early fifteenth century bells used to be cast on site and there are many, many churches throughout England that have a field known to locals as the bell-field beside, or very near to, the church. Often there are distinctive mounds and dips still visible in such a field and these are the remains of the pits that were dug in which the moulds were secured and the bells cast and sometimes one can still find traces in the soil of the fires that were lit to melt the bronze so that it could be poured into the moulds. By the end of that century permanent foundries had been established such as the famous Whitechapel Foundry (http://www.whitechapelbellfoundry.co.uk/) as well as many others. By AD1420 one Robert Chamberlain, master founder, was working from a permanent workshop at Whitechapel and there is some evidence to indicate that he may have set up the foundry that became established as the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in AD1570, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Let bells peal forth the universal fame
Conscience within, the boundless heavens above,
Disclose to faith the hidden name of Love.

Loudly proclaim with each insistant chime
Past sins forgiven, and future hopes restored,
Reveal thy presence with us, gracious Lord.

Spirit divine, re-cast our faulty ways,
Through every change of circumstance and choice
May we confess thee with a single voice.

Call us to worship, call us to obey,
Call us to love thee, Lord, since Love though art.

(New English Hymnal, 395)

13) Usually 1 Kings 8:22-30:

(King James Version)

14) From the Gospel according to Saint Luke the Apostle, Chapter 10:

(King James Version)

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/122546/sec_id/122546 .

http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/detail.php?searchString=Inverness+Cath&Submit=+Go+&DoveID=INVERNESS ,

and also at : http://www.cccbr.org.uk/felstead//tbid.php?tid=2660 .

http://www.olneybells.co.uk/newsitem.php?id=6 .

18) I introduced the Bellator family in my New English Review story here at http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/111793/sec_id/111793 .

The sacred bells of England
How gloriously they ring
From ancient tower and steeple,
For cottager, for king.
We love to hear their voices
How sweet to think the echo
May reach our heavenly home!

Church bells of happy England,
Your songs of olden time
Are chanted down the ages,
On merry Christmas morning,
On holy Easter Day,
Fulfil your festal calling,
Bid churchfolk up and pray.

Church bells of Christian England,
Ring out your message wide,
The bridegroom and the bride,
Or when the tenor tolling,
With passing-knoll we hear,
May one and all remember
A soul to God is near.

Ringers of happy England,
Who peal the earthly fanes
For Christ our Lord and Master
Complete your sacred office
While pilgrims on this strand,
That ye may swell the praises
In that eternal land.

(Hymns Ancient and Modern [Revised], 256)

here.

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