Why Disciples got the bell --- and Methodists didn't

This is an 1869 image of Chariton's First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), then located on the east side of South Grand Street, across from the current location of the educational wing of First Baptist Church. The congregation has moved twice since, first to what now is the parking lot of Pierschbacher Funeral Home, then to its current location north of Ilion Avenue.

Note that while a bell cage is in place on the roof, there is no bell within it. That was rectified during 1870 when a fine bell donated by Chariton's Masonic lodge was placed there. How that bell came into the custody of the Disciples, rather than the Methodists, is an interesting story related to a July 1, 1869, visit to Chariton by Rob Morris (1818-1888), poet laureate of Freemasonry and founder of the Order of the Eastern Star (left).

Here's how John Faith described the circumstances in the April 5, 1870, edition of The Chariton Democrat:

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NEW CHURCH BELL --- It will be remembered that on the occasion of Rob't Morris's lecture here, last fall, upon what he saw in the Holy Land, the Methodists refused to open their church to him, his lecture being for the benefit of the Masonic Lodge at this place, notwithstanding the fact that the members of that church had a week or two before that time received with open arms a man who pretended to be a "reformed drunkard," who was delivering temperance lectures, but who was really an ex-penitentiary convict, and who was shortly afterwards arrested in Monroe county for stealing money.

The action of the Methodists, in this instance, was a rebuke to the Masons, and they went to the authorities of the Christian church who very cheerfully, and without hesitation, gave the use of their church room for the lecture, and now come the Masons, in a spirit of liberality, and have donated to the Christian church, a bell worth $160 in acknowledgment of the courtesy extended to Mr Morris, and through him to the Masonic fraternity.

It is an acknowledgment very appropriate in its character, one of which the church has reason to feel proud, and one that should teach certain illiberal, bigoted and fanatical persons a lesson that might be worth remembering.

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Mr. Morris, who had visited the Holy Land during 1868, was on a nationwide speaking tour during 1869 describing his experiences there, including, in Jerusalem, founding what apparently was the first Masonic lodge in that neck of the woods. His general topic was, "Freemasonry and the Holy Land."

Reports in The Democrat from July of 1869 give some idea of why Chariton's Masons were annoyed. 

They apparently had received assurances from some Methodists (perhaps Masons themselves) that Mr. Morris would be welcomed at that congregation's fine new brick church, recently constructed on the current site of First United Methodist Church. Handbills to that effect had been printed and the appearance publicized.

Then, it appears, the Methodist preacher pulled the rug out from under the Masons, ostensibly because the date and time of the Morris appearance also was the date and time of the congregation's regular prayer meeting. There may have been more to it that that, of course --- relations between various Christian denominations and Masons have been, and remain, strained at times.

John Faith, to the best of my knowledge, had never met a Methodist preacher he approved of --- in part  because they tended to be strongly prohibitionist and John wasn't. So his reporting of the situation may be a bit biased here. But whatever the case, the Disciples got the bell and the Methodists didn't.