In many Churches of more recent foundation, but chiefly in such as have been builded within the last 200 years, we meet with a sad evidence of a decay of this feeling, or rather _principle_; in that the Belfry is placed high up in the Tower, and quite shut out from the body of the Church:—until, at last, it has come to pass (and this, too, is the case in some Churches, of 150 years old) that the Belfry is most frequently entirely omitted; and Churches of considerable size and pretensions are erected with only a single Call-Bell. But while this result has been coming to pass—(and it has been not a little hastened by mercenary hearts and sacrilegious hands, in the robbery of many of our older Churches of their Bells) another change has gradually been taking place of a still more mischievous character. In various records which have come down to us, bearing date about the times of the Reformation, reference is often made to, and sufficient evidence is given of, the superstitious usage of Church Bells: and there is, too, room for but little doubt that they, as well as the Church itself, were in those later ages frequently applied to profane purposes. Again, the Rules and doggrel verses (generally from one to two hundred years old) which remain in many of our Belfries, while they often show that the Bells were still used for holy purposes, and according to their original design, afford alas! a melancholy evidence that the Ringing of them was no longer esteemed a sacred service. Toward the latter half of the last century—(that worst age of the English Church) the Ringing of the Church Bells became a fashionable amusement among the Yeomanry and Gentry, and was degraded to the level on which the hurdle-race and steeple-chase now stand;—and while their sweet voices were seldom heard for any holy purpose, they were made continually to wake the echoes of the neighbourhood, in no more noble cause, for no more sacred object, than the battue-shooting of the present day. This amusement, however, at any rate in most parts of the country, has long ago “become vulgar” and “gone out of fashion”:—till at last our Belfries—though dedicated to GOD’S service—are left in a state of filthy dilapidation, receptacles for dirt and rubbish of all kinds, and very frequently the drinking-place of the most profane and profligate persons in the parish; who—totally ignorant of the sacred character, and Heavenly uses, of those holy instruments they are desecrating—ring the Bells for their amusement, amid oaths and obscenity, and sell their voices, for drink-money, for any worldly purpose—who ring “the muffled” or “the merry peal” for the rich man’s sorrow or rejoicing, but never send forth a sound of unbought sympathy with the poor. Far better would it be than this that our Bells should be altogether soundless—or that our Towers (as is generally the case with modern Churches) should possess but one.