Liberty Bell and Other Bells

The interior of the Liberty Bell chamber
 at the Liberty Bell Center.

        One of the most famous treasures of Philadelphia is Liberty Bell. When it was made, in London, it received two inscriptions. One of these runs: ''By order of the Province of Pennsylvania for the State House in the City of Philadelphia, 1752,'' and the other: ''Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof.'' The second was added because the Pennsylvanians were celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of their free colony by William Penn.
       After its arrival in Philadelphia, the bell was cracked in being tested, and had to be melted and recast. In June, 1753, it was finally finished and began its work of ringing for every festival and solemn occasion of the city. The most famous of these occasions came in July of 1776, when Liberty Bell spoke the joy of the people over the Declaration of Independence.
       That was not the last time the famous bell acted as the voice of Philadelphia and of the United States, for it remained in use until July 8, 1835, when it was cracked in tolling for the death of Chief Justice Marshall. Since then it has been tenderly cared for. On rare occasions it has been allowed to make a journey, as in 1893, when Chicago borrowed it for the World's Fair.
       The story of how bells in Europe came to have names and inscriptions goes far back into history. The Christian religion has always made much use of bells. The first missionaries to western Europe used to carry small iron ones in their hands to attract the people's attention as they traveled about teaching the new religion. People in Ireland still keep and treasure the bell Saint Patrick carried when he was teaching there in the year 640. In Field Museum of Chicago you can see an exact reproduction of it.
       Being closely associated with religion, the ringing of church bells came to be considered as holy and therefore powerful against storms, fire, sickness, and evil spirits. People of the Middle Ages were really afraid of evil spirits, especially the gods of the old religions, who were thought still to have some power, and to hate the followers of the new Christian God. These enemy spirits were believed to be afraid of the sound of church bells; therefore, when any one was dying, the bells were tolled to protect the soul on its journey from this world to the next.
       No wonder, then, that these holy and friendly bells were loved, I that they usually were inscribed with prayers, quotations from the King James Bible, or verses praising themselves, and that each one had its name, usually that of the person who had it made, or of some saint. Each new bell was christened with a solemn religious ceremony in which it was prayed over and covered with a white robe as if it were a baby. 

       Town bells, which rang to call the people together for defense or for public meetings, to give alarms, or simply to mark the hours of the day and night when most people had no clocks, were also loved and also had names.
        Other parts of the world have likewise treasured bells. The Chinese,  although they have never considered them as sacred and powerful as our ancestors did, sometimes used them in places of worship to remind people of the times for prayer. In the Field Museum's Chinese collection, you can see several old temple bells, as well as other smaller bells made for the collars of horses or camels. One cast-iron temple bell comes from a Lamaist temple. Lamaism is the form of Buddhism followed by the Tibetans and Mongols, and this bell bears inscriptions in the Tibetan and Chinese languages. It is hung to show the Chinese method of ringing by means of a wooden beam which strikes the bell on the outside. Some of the collection of pagoda models show how the Chinese hang bells at the corners of pagoda roofs to be rung by the wind.
       In the Malay jungles, when a tame elephant's work is done and he is turned out to pasture, he wears a large wooden bell to help his owner to find him again. Hunters in Africa often put small bells on the collars of their hunting dogs so that they may be more easily followed. And when you travel about the world or read geography and history, you will find many other interesting ways in which bells are used or have been used.

• The Liberty Bell at All Victorian Ephemera

Liberty Bell - Travel Thru History