Show LISTENING TO THE CHIMES message menage of the centuries Cen conveyed to those there who have minds attuned to hear sitting jn in the village churchyard while the children play with flowers the grass and the slow gossips saunter past the gate and the svening sunshine breaks in through the he golden shower of the laburnums nd ind rests resta peacefully on the worn headstone the chiming of the bells trem bles through the air like speech of living voices what histories ot of hu man life have they not witnessed up in that gray tower among the ivy what tears fears and jealousies what greed and passion and awful sins handed down in whispers of dark tradition have they not rung in and out at baptism and wedding and funeral what mysteries erlea are sealed under these tombs but no mysteries to them how they have chimed for every one that Is burled buried round and mixed with their thoughts and wan dered with them through other lands and come to them in dreams dying children have heard them call to heaven have lingered sweetly in the ears of happy brides lonely fathers have wept with them tor for the dead the havo have softened the cals heart in a far cu country they have rung like the voice of peace through the din of battle they have startled the wicked thought and palsied the wicked hand and there they peal still out of the past into the present over the dead and over the living it Is only a peal of bells and we have heard them a thousand times and nobody thinks of them but yet all this and a great deal more is in them william willia m F stevenson |