“The Churchwardens or Questmen, and their Assistants, shall suffer no plays, feasts, banquets, suppers, church-ales, drinkings, temporal courts, or leets, lay-juries, musters, or any other profane usage, to be kept in the church, chapel, or churchyard, neither the Bells to be rung superstitiously upon Holy-Days or Eves abrogated by the Book of Common Prayer, nor at any other times, without good cause, to be allowed by the Minister of the place, and by themselves.” The Belfry is a part of the Church,—and is, as is the rest of the Church, dedicated to GOD—any profane use of the Belfry, or any use of it for common worldly purposes, any unholy, light, irreverent conduct there, is a direct sin against GOD—a breaking of the Third Commandment. The Bells are to the whole parish what a Church Organ is to an assembled congregation. They wake up the heart’s affections, and lead us in our praises to GOD.—But they have a holy use and purpose of still broader character:—They call us to the Church, and tell us it is time for public Prayer, and bid all come who can—They warn, too, those who cannot come, that it is prayer-time now, that they may raise their hearts with us, and wish that they were with us, and send their desires heavenward, and have direct communion with us in our prayers, though absent in the body—They preach to all continually of death and Judgment, of Heaven and Hell,—and while they invite the willing, they warn those who will not come—They remind us all, amid our busy occupations, twice every day, that this is not our continuing city, that we are but pilgrims and sojourners upon earth; and while they warn the slothful Christian, thus continually, to “gird up his loins” and haste heavenwards, they preach to those who never hear another preacher, and tell them of a Judgment to come. Again,—They wake the heart to gladness on all the Holy Feast Days of the Church, loudly calling upon us to “rejoice in the LORD”; and in times of fasting and humiliation,—eloquent by their silence or by their mournful sounds, they call us to penitence and sorrow. Again,—If any of our neighbours, rich or poor, be joined together by Holy Church in marriage, the Bells ring out their cheerful peal of joy, bidding us all to raise up our hearts in thanksgiving with our brethren (whose marriage “represents unto us the mystical union which is betwixt CHRIST and His Church”)—for that “marriage is honourable in all men,” and “if one member be honoured, all the members rejoice.” Again,—When any is passing out of this life, the “Passing Bell” is tolled, acquainting us with that awful circumstance, warning us that our own time may even now be at hand, and calling upon us to pray for our departing brother, that in this “his hour of death the Good LORD may deliver him,” and “not suffer him, for any pains of death, to fall from GOD,”—that one and all of us, Minister and people, whether