Four of the
bells at the Cathedral of Versailles having been destroyed
during the French Revolution, four new ones were baptized, on
the 6th of January, 1824, the Voltairean King, Louis XVIII, and
the pious Duchess d'Angouleme standing as sponsors.
In some of these ceremonies zeal appears to have outrun
knowledge, and one of Luther's stories, at the expense of the
older Church, was that certain authorities thus christened a
bell "Hosanna," supposing that to be the name of a woman.
To add to the efficacy of such baptisms, water was sometimes
brought from the river Jordan.[346b]
The prayers used at bell baptisms fully recognise this doctrine.
The ritual of Paris embraces the petition that, "whensoever
this bell shall sound, it shall drive away the malign influences
of the assailing spirits, the horror of their apparitions, the
rush of whirlwinds, the stroke of lightning, the harm of
thunder, the disasters of storms, and all the spirits of the
tempest." Another prayer begs that "the sound of this bell may
put to flight the fiery darts of the enemy of men"; and others
vary the form but not the substance of this petition.
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