The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-07-20
IRELANp,s TRIBUTE.
The Archbishop Talks of Leo's Life
and Deeds

| ana b60QS
st. Paul, July 20.-Upon the receipt or
the news of the death of the pope.
Archbishop Ireland paid this tribute 10
the dead prelate:
In Leo a truly good and great man
! passes from earth. The extraordinary
the unparalleled interest with which
| the world these last two weeks kept
| vigil around the vatican where the old
hero battled dramatically with grim
| death is the magnificent tribute to Leo.
\ which nothing could ever have evoked
save unusual grandeur of soul and un-
usual feats, the offspring of that gran
deur. In the death of Leo humanity
realizes that an orb of light, such as
is seldom seen to dominate the high
| skies of its moral and intellectual firm
ament. has fallen, making a mighty
void which soon again may not be fill
led. Great and good Leo truly was
vine. What mind. Loftiest it was in
vision, reaching out to vastest hori-
| IONS, soaring upward to highest re-
gions of thought and truth. And how
quick in action that mind of Leos was
how piercing his glance.
How rich and varied the store of
knowledge.
Rapidly as he conversed he would
art, from theology to diplomack-ev>
erywhere the manifest master, every
where the cultured scholar
And then he was ambitious to put
! 10 pTuDl MS Talents, AMBITIOUS TO 90
great things. When he first ascended
the pontifcal throne he resolved that
! so far as opportunity came his would
be historic pontificate and to that
end ne worked conscientiously during
| his life He lived and worked purely
| for God and men. He met kings and
peasants, men of highest social rank
and of lowest-all bowed before his
graciousness and to all he spoke words
| of affection and devotion.
| There is other most of honor and
| duty; elevated, so sublime as the Ro-
man pontifcate. the treasury of centur-
les of inspirations, the world chair of
moral authority, ruling directly millions
| of every tribe and every nation, ruling
indirectly by the silent prestige of its
name and power, by the vast spiritual
force of it's life and teachings, entire hu-
manity. Into that pontif1cate Leo enter
/ ed in it he reigned as only two of his
/ predecessors reigned a quarter of cen
tury-leaving posterity to say, as he
closes the last pages of his record, that
in him the Catholic church has had one
! of the most mondrous of sovereigns and
humanity one of its noblest thinkers and
highest exemplars of fidelity to God Civ
en- duty.
Volumes will be written to narrate
the things done by Leo. In a hurried
| eulogy there is room only to note the
! general results he has achieved Leo's
adviceS were of course primarily to the
church. Leo made the church known to
the modern world. as she wished to be
made known. In one encyclical he dis
coursed on vital moral and dogmatic
principles which institute the doctrinal
life, to the end especially of Daaking
clear their social and civic values By
dint of wise words and acts he tore to
shreds the thick wells of prejudice and
misunderstanding which as the cOnSe-
quence of strifes and controversies of
centuries had been hiding its features
from the eyes of millions of the nom
! Catholic world. Liberty civil and po-
lftical individual rights. education. the
progress of science and of discovery, the
material comforts of the maSSes-Leo in
the name of the church blessed and ad-
vocated. Today the Catholic church IS
universally admitted to be in the van of
/ humanity's forward march and for this
Leo is to be thanked.
An humanity MS been benefited by
1 him. He never heSitated to reach out
beyond the formal confines of the
/ church to serve humanity, to serve ma
tions and men. who were not of the fold
of the church
s'One of the most important acts of
Leo was the announcement to the Cath
olics of France that it was their moral
duty to adhere to the republic and the
doctrinal teaching regarding modern
( ideas and forms Of government involved
/ in that announcement 1t was, TOO, q
( masterful stroke of diplomacy. All the
+ Catholics of France did not follow Leo
Their political traditions held the field
Today they are suffering from their
short sishted conservatism and their
: disobedience towards Leo.
mo other man reigned at the dawn Of
! the twentieth century as Leo reigned-
1t was the supreme triumph of moral
power-the triumph of truth and of jus
I tfce. the triumph of soul replenished
with truth and justice With Leo there
/ dies the admirer and lover of America
said he to a bishop from America
one day: oh America it is the future
Leos clear view of things far away in
I time as we'll as in space has endeared
/ America to him. No other statesman in
/ Europe like Leo understood America
/ its possibilities and the meaning of its
institutions. Nothing in the circum-
! stance connected with the illness and
i death of Leo does so much honor to him
| and so much honor to our common hu-
man nature as the sincere and outspoken
| interest taken in him by the non-Cath-