Two years after going to Greenwich, Cody launched a monthly parish magazine to assist him in his work, "by keeping all in touch with parochial affairs, and for the instruction in the Faith." It was called The Church Bell and its motto was taken from Ephesians 6:22 - "That ye might know our affairs." All the parish notes and other items for the inside cover were written by Cody [1] The Church Bell was perhaps the only regular monthly parish magazine of a Church of England in the city of Saint John and perhaps one of the very few in the whole Diocese of Fredericton. At the end of the first year there were 140 paid-up subscriptions but a total of 220 magazines were distributed. The annual cost of publishing was $100, this amount being supported by advertisements in the magazine. However, The Church Bell did not cover everything pertaining to the parish; it was The Saint John Standard that carried the special addresses which Cody gave in 1910. [2] In 1939 The Church Bell (Saint John edition) reached it 30th year of publication, Editor Cody still faithfully preparing each monthly issue, taking it personally to the Paterson Printing Company on Union Street, seeing that it was stapled to its British supplement (The New Day), and then delivering most of the copies himself from door to door within the parish. However, the October-November issue for 1940 carried the following note: "Owing to the bombing of the publishing firm in London, this number of The Church Bell is issued without the usual English magazine. This is the first time it has been omitted in 30 years." All of H. A. Cody's own personal copies of The Church Bell (the Greenwich editions and the Saint John editions) were professionally bound (two or three years per volume) and the Saint John volumes were later presented to St. James' Church. Besides continuing to live up to its motto, "That ye might know our affairs" (Eph. 6:22), The Church Bell also continued to provide its founder with a necessary outlet for a small part of his writing. His annual reports appeared in the January issues, concluding with statistics from the parish registers; for 1932 Cody wrote: ". . .there have been 23 baptisms, 14 weddings and 21 burials. There were 70 celebrations of the Holy Communion, at which 1,211 persons communicated. There were 107 Sunday and 47 week-day services, with a total attendance of 20,052 during the year. There were over 1,100 parochial calls made, many of them upon the sick persons." [3] The last published edition of The Church Bell was on January 25, 1943 - The Final Farewell Edition. Archdeacon H. A. Cody wrote The Rector's Report for 1942.
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