77 (in same). Among others sharing these opinions were Tyndale, Bishop
Ridley, Archbishop Sandys, Becon, Calfhill, and Rogers. It is to be
noted that all of these speak of the rite as "baptism."

Toward the end of the sixteenth century the Elector of Saxony strictly
forbade the ringing of bells against storms, urging penance and prayer
instead; but the custom was not so easily driven out of the Protestant
Church, and in some quarters was developed a Protestant theory of a
rationalistic sort, ascribing the good effects of bell-ringing in storms
to the calling together of the devout for prayer or to the suggestion
of prayers during storms at night. As late as the end of the seventeenth
century we find the bells of Protestant churches in northern Germany
rung for the dispelling of tempests. In Catholic Austria this
bell-ringing seems to have become a nuisance in the last century, for
the Emperor Joseph II found it necessary to issue an edict against
it; but this doctrine had gained too large headway to be arrested by
argument or edict, and the bells may be heard ringing during storms to
this day in various remote districts in Europe.(245) For this was no
mere superficial view. It was really part of a deep theological current
steadily developed through the Middle Ages, the fundamental idea of the
whole being the direct influence of the bells upon the "Power of the
Air"; and it is perhaps worth our while to go back a little and glance
over the coming of this current into the modern world. Having grown
steadily through the Middle Ages, it appeared in full strength at
the Reformation period; and in the sixteenth century Olaus Magnus,
Archbishop of Upsala and Primate of Sweden, in his great work on the
northern nations, declares it a well-established fact that cities and
harvests may be saved from lightning by the ringing of bells and the
burning of consecrated incense, accompanied by prayers; and he cautions
his readers that the workings of the thunderbolt are rather to be
marvelled at than inquired into. Even as late as 1673 the Franciscan
professor Lealus, in Italy, in a schoolbook which was received with
great applause in his region, taught unhesitatingly the agency of
demons in storms, and the power of bells over them, as well as the
portentousness of comets and the movement of the heavens by angels.
He dwells especially, too, upon the perfect protection afforded by the
waxen Agnus Dei. How strong this current was, and ho