THE VILLAGE BELLS. A belle to byggen of brass, other of brygt silver, PIERS PLOUHMAN. How sweet the tuneful bells responsive peal! W. L. Bowles. Bells, the music nighest bordering upon heaven. It is said by a writer of the present day, whose productions, according to Dr. Chalmers, "albeit of quaint and party-coloured garb, in which we can discern both the antique and the exotic, and withal the fresh and strikingly original-yet charged throughout with the deep feeling, and bating a few slight exceptions, with the deepest philosophy,”—that "the man whom nature has appointed to do great things is, first of all, furnished with that openness of nature which renders him incapable of being insincere! To his large, open, deep-feeling heart, Nature is a fact: all hearsay is hearsay: the unspeakable greatness of this mystery of life, let him acknowledge it or not, nay, even though. he seem to forget it or deny it, is ever present to him-fearful and wonderful, on this hand or on that. He has a basis of sincerity; unrecognised, because never questioned or capable of question. A great truth, Phoenix-like, springs from the ashes of all things, false creeds, impious doctrines, mechanical atheism, emperors, popes, potentates, pretended prophecy, formularies, indulgences, mass-worship, and the like. A great truth is here-gushing from the heartfountain of him that said it. Nature is a fact; and presents, as it were, a foot-hold, from which we may plunge into the mystery of life, to be engulphed, perhaps, in the unfathomable depths of doubt, uncertainty, and unbeliefwhirled backward and forward amid the breakers of fate, free-will, and liberty happily, riding a-head over the mighty ocean, "the throne of the Invisible, the image of the Eternal," guided, as of old, by the light of that radiant star whose beams shone over the humble sanctuary of Bethlehem, an unerring guide, a beauty, and a blessing. Truth is a jewel; *Thomas Carlyle. Hero Worship. or, but it is a jewel only found amid a mass of rubbish-amid the accumulated ruins of institutions time-honoured, yet crushed by the foot of time, leaving to after ages the task of an almost interminable search, and an equally interminable contradiction. Is it, therefore, a matter of astonishment, that, bewildered as we are in a labyrinth of difficulties, without the possession of the silken thread-seeing through a glass darkly the unspeakable greatness of this mystery of lifedebilitated, deadened by the conviction, that, in the present artificial state of society, with its tiger-fight of self-interest and self-aggrandizement, the possession of wealth in this moneygrubbing England, with its endless machinery and its unequal laws, is the key that opens the edifice of "respectability "—are we amazed that the length of a man's purse, and not the wealth and might of his own mind, is the test to the possession of power and the patronage of place, notwithstanding that we may be impressed with the belief sanctioned by the eternal, unchangeable laws of truth and justice, that the pure ore of the mind's riches must pass current somewhere hereafter! Can it be a matter of astonishment, that, spurning the impurities of earth and all earthly things, the soul should long for the cynosure of heaven, or that the heart should cling to the loadstar of earth? But if the mind, however deeply sincere, becomes solely involved in this mystery of lifeif the mental vision, stretching onwards, is blinded by the matchless effulgence of heaven, and then shrinking aghast, becomes lost in endless mazes-what should ring him back to himself and to the true appreciation of the blessings and enjoyments, and of the obligations and duties of his own earthly sphere-to the days of youth, and hope, and beauty, and affection, and the stern path which still lies open before him, and upon which he must yet tread until he reaches the precincts of the cold, cold grave? Why-the VILLAge Bells. It is Sunday morning. Unfolding wide the golden gates of the east, forth from his radiant palace comes the King of day. The mass of clouds stand aside, like a congregated throng of satraps before the presence of their great eastern potentate. The army of dews, rolling over the valleys and curling around the mountain's base, have received the command to break up their night-encampment, and to disappear. The dew-drop, the sweet tear of night, is trembling upon the drooping bough, or glistening in the eye of beauty's own fragrant flower. The woodland hymn of morning is voiced by countless harmonious throats; and the lark, the winged messenger from the humble furrow, mounts fluttering, higher and higher, with its tribute of heartfelt song, hailing the approach of the great luminary of day. Even the wells gush forth with more harmonious music-the rills chant their song of gladness with a livelier voice-the rivers roll onwards with deeper solemnity; and the mute lake, reflecting the luxurious blue depths of heaven, with the wild bird sleeping upon its peaceful breast, seems to utter its orisons in expressive, most powerful silence, as if awed by the depth and sincerity of its own mute and breathless, tongueless devotion. The spirit of harmonious gladness has spread her wings over hill and valley, moorland and mountain—through the quiet pathways of the deep forest, waving its billowy branches, with the wood-dove, like some angelic being, slowly mounting upon its otherwise hurrying wing-along the slope of the richly-timbered park, where the young fawns, with their eyes of expressive softness, are quietly feeding, and, afar off, the bucks, |