the drum. This may seem somewhat strange, accustomed as we are
to think of the drum as a purely rhythmical instrument. The
sounds given out by it seem at best vague in tone and more
or less uniform in quality. We forget that all instruments
of percussion, as they are called, are direct descendants of
the drum. The bells that hang in our church towers are but
modifications of the drum; for what is a bell but a metal drum
with one end left open and the drum stick hung inside?

Strange to say, as showing the marvellous potency of primeval
instincts, bells placed in church towers were supposed to
have much of the supernatural power that the savage in his
wilderness ascribed to the drum. We all know something of the
bell legends of the Middle Ages, how the tolling of a bell was
supposed to clear the air of the plague, to calm the storm, and
to shed a blessing on all who heard it. And this superstition
was to a certain extent ratified by the religious ceremonies
attending the casting of church bells and the inscriptions
moulded in them. For instance, the mid-day bell of Strasburg,
taken down during the French Revolution, bore the motto

"I am the voice of life."

Another one in Strasburg:

"I ring out the bad, ring in the good."

Others read

"My voice on high dispels the storm."