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Show voooxxoxxxxooxxxxooo S Exchanged Mitre I IS For Grown $ o , XXX0XX5X0 oxoxoxxox A The news of the death of the Bishop of Cheyenne was a very unpleasant Christmas greeting to the dead pre-j pre-j late' smany friends all over the coun-i coun-i try. It is scarcely five years since he was consecrated in Dubuque, and on ; that occasion the consecrating prelate saluted him in the words of the ponti-i ponti-i Ileal: "Ad multos annos." How little the hundreds of priests and Bishops there present imagined that in less I than four years the rugged metropoli-j metropoli-j tan would be called away, and in less than five years the Benjamin of his episcopate would be summoned to follow fol-low him to the grave. Man proposes, but God disposes. The wish of a long life was not the only one that greeted the ears of the young Bishop. From far and near friends gathered in Du- if it h l Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Lenihan. buque on the occasion of his consecration consecra-tion and bade him Godspeed in the new path that lay before him and heaven's choicest blessing on the young diocese he was called on to administer. He had been a very successful parish priest and his work in Fort Dodge still remains a monument that would be an honor to a long and laborious lifetime life-time in the ministry. He was the idol of his flock, and the immense delegation delega-tion that traveled all the way to Dubuque Du-buque to honor him on the day of his elevation to the episcopate, in an address ad-dress that seemed written in tears and conceived in gloom of heart, they told ns on that occasion how great was the sacrifice they were called on to make. The people of Dubuque who had known him from childhood bade him a sorrowful sor-rowful adieu when he turned his face toward his western diocese and left home and friends behind to do the work of God in the far west. It was a sad leavetaking. We shall not soon forget it. The stay of Bishop Lenihan in Cheyenne Chey-enne was fruitful in works of zeal and beneficence; but it was all too short to realize the work he had undertaken or to give his people a full measure of the man. Perhaps he was too old to transplant; trans-plant; at all events, he soon began to develop traces of the disease that final ly carried him off. He has been a very sick man for the two years past. The Bishops of the province of Dubuque came to his rescue and named him Bishop of the new see of Sioux City. People who are au courant with what is going on at Rome have known for some time that the only reason a Bishop Bish-op was not named for the third see in Iowa was that the Propaganda was apprised ap-prised of the serious condition of Bishop Lenihan's health and wished to wait further information on that point They had no thought of appointing another, but they did not wish to send a sick man to the young diocese. If the Bishop Bish-op had rallied sufficiently to give any hope of being able to administer the new see he would have received the bulls in the spring. Let us hope that he has exchanged the mitre of Sioux City for a crown of glory. Bishop Lenihan was a very lovable person from boyhood. He was a favorite fa-vorite in college; a favorite among his fellow-priests; a favorite among the Bishops. He was not a man of affected goodness or artificial suavity. He was generous by nature, and to his fnnd-i fnnd-i ness of heart was added a genuine ' piety that made every man dear to him j as a brother. He was beloved by rn-I rn-I testants as well as Catholics: ami it I was the former who first spoke of e-i e-i titioning Uome to send him bark to I Iowa. He was a great patron of edma-! edma-! tion. and his parochial schools were the i best in the province, and a model" of i efficiency and completeness of oeuip- ment. He felt the great necessity of supplying to the rising gen. 'ration (hat j religious "milieu" which in this country coun-try is not to be found outside the parochial pa-rochial school. Our social atmosphere is not Protestant: it is worse; it is absolutely ab-solutely non-religious. The moral nature na-ture of the child dies from spiritual atrophy. - Bishop Lenihan strove to supply sup-ply the deficiency by building ami maintaining main-taining parochial schools This was perhaps his greatest achievement, and one to which his name will be linked lemgest. We sympathize with the whol Lenihan Leni-han family, which has given the Church in the west so many priests and religious. re-ligious. We sympathize with the thousands thou-sands of friends of the dead on the sad bereavement that has befallen them. We sympathize with the young dioeese of Sioux Cits' which did not gain, and the diocese of Cheyenne which has lost a good and great chief pasto-. May he rest in peace. Western Watchman. GRIEF AT FORT DODGE. Fort Dodge, la.. Dec. 17. Great sorrow sor-row has been caused here by the announcement an-nouncement of the death of Father T. M. Lenihan. Bishop of Cheyenne, at Marshalltown, last Sunday evening. Bishop Lenihan was pastor of Corpus Christi church in this c ity for twenty-seven twenty-seven years, and was actively connected connect-ed with the growth of the Catholic religion re-ligion in northwestern Iowa. Funeral services will he held for him in Corpus Christi church in this city, which he was instrumental in erecting, at 9 o'clock on Thursday morning, when the Bishop's funeral will also b? in progress in Dubuepue. FATHER CRONLVS TRIBUTE. A telegram from the Rev. Mathew C. Lenihan of Marshalltown, la., conveys the sad intelligence that his beloved brother, the Right Reverend Bishop of Cheyenne, died last Sunday evening. The funeral service will be held Thursday, Thurs-day, l:th instant, in the cathedral at. Dubuque the city of his boyhood's home and where the members of his family reside. Many a fervid prayer will go up to the God of Mercies in behalf of this noble-hearted man and devoted prelate. It was impossible to know Bishop Lenihan Leni-han without One's heart going out to him in reverent affection. He was eminently a manly man, despising everything little or mean, a model of zeal in building up the affairs of his young diocese, profoundly just in his episcopal administrations, and with a heart of Christ-like charity withal in which his priests and people always found a father and a friend. We saw much of Bishop Lenihan when at Hot Springs. last spring, and the warm friendship he manifested toward to-ward us then shall be ever to us a precious ' memory. As we pen these words his large, laughing eyes rise he-fore he-fore the vision of imagination, while many an incident of his teasing tun comes back on the wings of recollection. recollec-tion. The mountain air of Wyoming proved fatal to Bishop Lenihan, yet he was loath to part from his first episcopal episco-pal spous?. It was arranged, however, that he was to be Bishop of the new See at Sioux City, when he would be in a cherished clime again. But heaven had otherwise decreed, and he died as Bishop of Cheyenne. It sems but yesterday since we had the happiness of greeting our departed friend and his reverend brother at our home in North Tonawanda. How little did we then think that his earthly end j was so near! May the God of Mercy j grant rest eternal to Bishop Lenihan, land sweetly console the disconsolate hearts in Dubuque, and in widowed Cheyenne. Union and Times. |