"We have borne it too long," said the bell-voice. "We were set here on high for other purposes than men have put us to. Is not this a cathedral, a sanctuary, and a shrine, sacred with the dust of martyrs, and dedicated to the service of Heaven? Were not we christened like immortals? Were not we consecrated like priests? The touch of holy hands is on us, and shall we be debased to secular uses? Set apart like sacred ministers in a sacred dwelling, shall we be required to mingle in the common circumstances of your daily life? Raised on high to be near the heavens we serve, shall our saintly voices serve to tell you when to eat and sleep? "We have borne it too long. We will still serve Heaven, and summon you on Sundays and Holydays. We will call you to the solemn services of the Church. We will, if necessary, sound a triumphant peal on days of national thanksgiving, in remembrance of the Victory which first awoke us into music. We will even condescend to ring at your weddings—because marriage is a sacrament—and at your baptisms. We will toll solemnly when your spirits pass from earth, and when your bodies are laid in the churchyard we have seen slowly raised with the dust of your dying generations. "But henceforth expect us not to do work which your commonest house-clocks can do as well. Let your eight-day clocks—your gilded time-pieces—call you to work, and eat, and rest. We are sacred things, set solemnly apart from all secular uses. Our business is with Eternity, and the Church, and Heaven. Call on us no more to commune with the things of the world, and earth, and time. We are your cathedral bells, but we will be your household clock-chimes no longer." Then the voice died away on the night air. For a few minutes there was silence, but soon it was broken by sobs and lamentations, and all the people lifted up their voice as one man, and wept. The house-father said, "Shall we never more hear your voice calling us to morning and evening prayer? Whenever you told us it was the hour, the mother came from her work, and the children from their play, and together we knelt a united family, and committed each other to God." And the mother said, "Your voices are blended with every happy household time. Sweet bells, will you mingle with our family joys no more? In the morning you wakened us to begin another busy day, and the sun's beams and your voices came together to call us to serve God in our lowly calling; and both, we thought, came to us from heaven; and both, we thought, were meek and lowly, and ready to minister to us in our daily lives, because both were sent from Him who came among us once, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and both, we thought, had caught something of the light of the eyes which wept at Bethany, and of the tones of the voice which spoke at Cana and at Nain.