The Ravens and the Angels, with Other Stories and Parables

by Elizabeth Rundle Charles

But when it was dark a sound very weird and strange, yet with a music like the old familiar tones, came from the church-tower, as it rose dim and grand against the starry sky. It was a voice, not human, yet with a strange likeness to a human voice, silvery as a stream, thrilling as a battle-trumpet, familiar to each listener as his own,—like the blended voices of a spirit and a bell.

"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 voices 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. At mid-day you told me it was time to send the dinner to my husband and my elder sons. At six your voice was welcome to us all, because we knew the father's step would soon be on the threshold. At eight you reminded me it was time to lay the little ones to rest, and many a time have you brought happy and holy thoughts to me in those psalms you sang to me whilst I hushed my babes to sleep; and all my every-day life seemed to be more linked with sacred things, and to become, as it were, a part of the service of God, because it moved to the music of your voices. And again at night your tones were welcome, as in the morning, when they told us the day's work was over, and, wearied, we lay down to peaceful rest; for through the night we knew your sacred voices would sound to Heaven above our sleeping city, like the voices of the angels, who rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, holy, holy. Sweet bells! will you never chime for us again?"

And the children said, in their clear, sweet, ringing voices, "Dear chimes! do not cease to play to us. You wake us to the happy day, you set us free from school, and send us home laughing and dancing for joy; you call our fathers home to us, at night you sing us to sleep, and your voices are blended with our mothers' in our happy dreams. Sweet chimes! you sang so many years to our fathers and mothers; and our grandfathers remember you when they were little children like us. Dear chimes! sing to us still."

And from the sick-chamber which looked into the cathedral square, where the windows were darkened all day, and sand was strewn before the door, that the din of the passing wheels might jar less roughly on the aching head within, came a low and plaintive voice:—"Sweet bells! your commonest tones are sacred to me. You are my church music,—the only church music I can ever hear. When I hear you chime the hour on Sundays and on the festivals, I feel myself among the multitude within your sacred walls; and your voice seems to bear their songs of praise to me, and I am no more alone, but one of the worshippers. But at night it is I prize you most. All through the hours of darkness, so often sleepless to me, your voice is the voice of a friend, familiar as my mother's, yet solemn as the chants of the choir. It helps me to measure off the hours of pain, and say, 'Thank God, an hour less of night, and an hour nearer morning.' And how often, when my suffering is great, you have come with the old psalm-tune, and every tone has brought its word to me, and spoken to me as if direct from God, and filled my heart with trust and peace! Your least sprinkles of sweet sound are precious to me. I fancy they are like the waters of time falling musically from stone to stone on their way to the great sea. I feel they are as the echoes of the footsteps of Him who is drawing nearer and nearer to me; and they draw my heart nearer to Him. Sweet bells! your commonest tones are sacred; for what is the World but that which becomes the Church when it learns how God has loved it, and turns from self to Him? and what is Earth but the floor of Heaven, which heavenly feet once trod? and what is Time but the little fragment of Eternity in which we live on earth? Sweet bells! make not my sleepless night lonely and silent, but sing to me, sing to us all, as of old. Make all our life sacred by linking every fragment of our life to God."

But still no responsive sound came from the cathedral tower, and the people waited on in the silence and the darkness. At last a young priest, an Augustinian friar, ventured a bold suggestion:—"Are not the devils proud, and the angels lowly? Did the angel think it beneath him to say to Elijah, 'Arise, and eat'? Did Gabriel hesitate to descend from the presence of God to bear to an aged priest the tidings of the birth of a child? Did that other angel deem it secular to say to Peter the apostle, 'Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals, and cast thy garment about thee,' before he led him over the stony streets through the cold night air? And should our cathedral bells scorn to bid us 'rise and eat,' or to chime at our births, or to summon us to 'gird and clothe' ourselves for every day's work? Brethren, proud thoughts, and scorn of daily service, and voices which call our every-day life common and unclean, are not from Heaven. The bells are possessed by a proud and evil spirit. Let us exorcise them."

The suggestion at first startled the people as daring, and irreverent to the church bells, but in their despair they at length agreed to try it. A solemn procession of priests and holy men and women mounted the cathedral tower, and, in ancient formulas, with prayer and incense, and the music of holy hymns, they exorcised the fiend.

Then at once a tide of pent-up music flowed from the liberated bells! They conscientiously rang out all at once every hour and half-hour they had omitted, and then meekly and steadily resumed their wonted chimes, and continued them ever afterwards, like voices of happy and lowly angels calling men to wake and pray, to "rise and eat," to pray and rest; cheering the workman to his daily labour, and welcoming him from it; chanting to the mother as she lulled her babe; and in the sick-chamber soothing the lonely hours with melodious sound, and waking in the lonely heart sweet echoes of the psalms of praise.