Their voices to some tell only of daily duty, of trains to catch, of the return of the hours of toil, of the ceaseless flight of inexorable time to others they speak of devotion, and are as the voice of a mother calling us to her knee for prayer to others again the bells are means of healthful exercise and instruments of heart-stirring music. There is, however, an increasing number of people, who,over and above the feeling of one or more of these interests in the voices of the bells, take an interest also in the bells themselves. To these the belfry has a story to tell, now full of the resources of art, now of the glamour of romance, now of the struggles of the Faith. Recent years have seen the publication of not a few books upon the subject, some dealing exhaustively with certain districts, others tbuching lightly a wider field. In the following pages the author has endeavoured to cover the whole of a subject admittedly large and varied, and to illustrate by the choice of the most striking examples all the many uses of the bells. How far he has succeeded in doing this in a popular way, others must, of course, determine but the kindly manner in which the public has accepted at his hands some previous attempts of a somewhat similar kind, leads him to hope that this may prove not less worthy of a generous reception. It remains to be stated that Mr. William Andrews, of Hull, placed at the authors disposal his collection of books, notes, etc., relating to this subject that Mr. J. Potter Briscoe, author of Curiosities of the Belfry, kindly lent a number of illustrations which appear in this volume, and Mr. Robert Head, historian of Congleton, the one of Ringing the Chains...