NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 459 



for one of the bells of St. Peter's, and to have issued a bull for the 

 baptizing of bells "to cleanse the air of devils."* 



This idea was rapidly developed, and we soon find it supported 

 in ponderous treatises, spread widely in sermons, and popularized in 

 multitudes of inscriptions cast upon the bells themselves. This branch 

 of theological literature may still be studied in multitudes of church- 

 towers throughout Europe. A bell at Basel bears the inscription, 

 " Ad fugandos demones." Another, in Lugano, declares " The sound 

 of this bell vanquishes tempests, repels demons, and summons men." 

 Another, at the Cathedral of Erfurt, declares that it can "ward off 

 lightning and malignant demons." f A peal in the Jesuit church at 

 the university town of Pont-a-Mousson bore the words, " They praise 

 God, put to flight the clouds, affright the demons, and call the people." 

 This is dated 1634. Another bell in that part of France declares, "It 

 is I who dissipate the thunders" {Ego sum qui dissipo tonitrua).\ 



Another, in one of the forest cantons of Switzerland, bears a dog- 

 gerel couplet, which may be thus translated : 



" On the devil my spite I'll vent, 

 And, God helping, had weather prevent." # 



Very common were inscriptions embodying this doctrine in sonorous 

 Latin. 



In accordance with this doctrine, there grew up a ritual for the 

 consecration of bells. Knollys, in his translation of the quaint old 

 chronicler Sleidan, gives us the usage in the simple English of the 

 middle of the sixteenth century : 



" In lyke sorte [as churches] are the belles used. And first, forsouth, 

 they must hange so, as the By shop may goe round about them. 

 Whiche after he hath sayde certen Psalmes, he consecrateth water and 

 salte, and mingleth them together, wherwith he washeth the belle 

 diligently both within and without, after wypeth it drie, and with 

 holy oyle draweth in it the signe of the crosse, and prayeth God, that 

 whan they shall rynge or sounde that bell, all the disceiptes of the 

 devyll may vanyshe away, hayle, thondryng, lightening, wyndes, and 

 tempestes, and all untemperate weathers may be aswaged. Whan he 

 hath wipte out the crosse of oyle wyth a linen cloth, he maketh seven 

 other crosses in the same, and within one only. After saying certen 

 Psalmes, he taketh a payre of sensours and senseth the bel within, and 



* Such is the current statement (see, e. g., Higgins's " Anacalypsis," ii, 70), but I am 

 unable to find satisfactory record of this bull. Platina relates only (" Yitae Pontif." s. v. 

 John XIII) that this pope stood sponsor for a bell of St. Peter's. 



f These illustrations, with others equally striking, may be found in Meyer, " Der 

 Aberglaube des Mittelalters," 185, 186. 



\ For these two instances and many more, see Germain, " Anciennes cloches lor- 

 raines" (Nancy, 1885), pp. 23, 27. 



* " An dem Tiifel will ich mieh riichen, 



Mit der hilf gotz alle bosen wetter zerbrechen." 



(See Meyer, a3 above.) 



