_Bells at Berwick-upon-Tweed._--Can any one favour me with a parallel or
similar case, in respect to bells, to what I recently met with at
Berwick-upon-Tweed? The parish church, which is the only one in the town,
and a mean structure of Cromwell's time, is without either tower or {293}
bell; and the people are summoned to divine service from the belfry of the
town-hall, which has a very respectable steeple. Indeed, so much more
ecclesiastical in appearance is the town-hall than the Church, that (as I
was told) a regiment of soldiers, on the first Sunday after their arrival
at Berwick, marched to the former building for divine service, although the
church stood opposite the barrack gate. My kind informant also told me that
he found a strange clergyman one Sunday morning trying the town-hall door,
and rating the absent sexton; having undertaken to preach a missionary
sermon, and become involved in the same mistake as the soldiers.
But more curious still was the news that there is a meeting-house in
Berwick belonging to the anti-burghers, who are dissenters from the Church
of Scotland, which has a bell, for the ringing of which, as a summons to
worship, Barrington, Bishop of Durham, granted a licence, which still
exists. I was not aware that bishops either had, or exercised, the power of
licensing bells; but my informant will, I doubt not, on reading this,
either verify or correct the statement. At the time when the bell was
licensed, the congregation were in communion with the Church of Scotland.