"I have found you, Gilbert de Hers," he muttered; "your bugle has rung
your knell."

Gilbert replied but by a laugh of scorn, and the next instant their
swords gleamed in the air. But just as the two blades met with a sharp
clang, there came stealing through the wood the mellow sound of a
distant bell. It was like the voice of an angel forbidding strife. Those
soft, lingering notes seemed to have won a sweetness from the skies to
pour out upon the world, and, filling the space between field and cloud,
connected for a moment heaven and earth--for they wake in the heart of
man the same emotions more perfectly felt in paradise.

For many centuries after the destruction of the Roman Empire, when all
human institutions were swept away by the resistless torrent that poured
from the North, and the Church of God alone stood safe and firm, with
the rainbow of heaven around her, the stern warriors of Germany asserted
their rights, or redressed their wrongs with the sword, and scorned to
bow before the impotent decrees of a civil tribunal. A regular system of
private warfare gradually sprang up, which falsely led every man of
honor to revenge any real or fancied offence offered to any of his
kindred. The most deadly enmity frequently existed between neighboring
chiefs, and the bitter feeling was transmitted unimpaired from father to
son. The most dreadful consequences inevitably resulted from this fatal
installation of might in the outraged temple of justice. Until lately a
blind prejudice and a perverted history have charged this unfortunate
state of things to the pernicious influence of the Church of Rome. But
the wiser Protestants of the present day, considering it rather a poor
compliment to their faith to assign its birth to the sixteenth century,
are beginning to be awake to the powerful instrumentality of the
Christian Church in the regeneration of mankind, and the production of