Last toll for Lawrence

CAST BY STUCKSTEDE & BRO. ST. LOUIS MO. 1939


IN HONOREM
ST. JOSEPHI PROCTECTORIS NOSTRI
ECCLESIA ST. LAVRENTII
CLEVELAND, O. 1939
(In honor of our protector, St. Joseph. The church of St. Lawrence)

In this bell steeple there are three bells. Even people who have rung bells in their churches for years have come to their task after the initial installation, and may not realise their history, and the full power of their romance. After several years, electrical maintenance of wiring, and motors, may not always have been maintained, and they have become silenced. There are places, in which, neighbors, and government have silenced them; in others they have "gone out of fashion". Some places they have been superceded by electronic chimes. Bells are given names and 'baptised' by bishops, at least amongst all the catholics. They are harbingers of joy, sadness and alarum.

The church of Saint Lawrence (ECCLESIA ST. LAVRENTII) has three bells: St. Joseph, Blessed Virgin Mary and, the larger, Christ the King. Bells were rung thrice daily for the Angelus prayers at 6 am, noon, and 6 pm, and for regular Masses, and other events (funerals, marriages and disaters).

Now, supposedly this church's patrimony will be auctioned off by Richie Lennon. It is not so easy with the bells. Will he recognise their sacredness and baptismal character? They are clearly labelled, and are where they are supposed to be. The mold was made and the metal cast. Is he going to have the lettering ground off? Or will he puddle the bell for the scrap value of bronze?

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..." ― John Donne 1624