PROTECTIVE BELL-RINGING.
The notion that the tinkling and clanging of bells is a safeguard against the influence of evil spirits, so common among Christian nations, evidently prevailed also with the ancient Egyptians. Some little hand-bells with representations of Typhon have been found in Egyptian tombs, and are still preserved. The Hebrew high-priests had bells attached to their garments, and the reason assigned to this usage, given in Exodus xxviii., verse 35, is: "His sound shall be heard when he goeth into the holy place before the Lord, and when he cometh out, that he die not." Whatever may be the right interpretation of this sentence—there are more than one—it cannot but remind us of the use made by the ancient Egyptians of the Sistrum, the tinkling sounds of which were considered indispensable in religious ceremonies. Nay, what is more remarkable, the sistrum is still in use, being employed by the priests of a Christian sect in Abyssinia; while the Copts, in Upper Egypt, who are likewise Christians, shake in their religious performances a tinkling instrument of metal, called marâoueh, avowedly for the purpose of keeping off the Evil One. Moreover, the Shamans, in Siberia, when preparing themselves for performing incantations, and for prophesying, dress themselves in garments to which are attached tinkling and rattling appendages. Likewise the "medicine men," or prophets of the American Indians, when they engage in sorcery and invocation of spirits, employ, if not tinkling metal, at least dried and rattling seed-pods, loose bills of certain water birds, gourds containing pebbles, and similar contrivances.
The old belief, even at the present day not uncommon, that bell-ringing on the approach of a thunderstorm, and during its continuance, is a protection against lightning, may not unfrequently have been conducive to a deplorable accident, since the current of air produced by the swinging of a bell is more likely to attract the electric fluid than, as is supposed, to drive it away. In Prussia the old and cherished custom of ringing bells during a thunderstorm was wisely forbidden by Frederick the Great, in the year 1783, and his ordinance directed the prohibition to be read in all the churches of the kingdom.