THE IRISH MONTHLY DECEMBER, 1906 A NEWRY PRIEST AND A NEWRY LAYMAN T HE most quotable of Latin poets is often quoted for the statement that many heroes lived before Agamemnon but were left unsung because there was no vates to sing their praise. How far some specially useful life will at its close be commemorated in the local journals depends often on the circumstance whether or not there is a friendly pen ready to write the obituary. It has been the subject of good-humoured animadversion that many places and persons mentioned in these pages owe that advantage, such as it is, to the accident of being in some way connected with the editor of the Magazine. Well, one is supposed to speak of what one knows. Other towns in Ireland, I hope, have citizens as useful and as generous as the one whom Newry lost by the death of Mr. Thomas Fegan, April 24, 1906; and other towns and rural parishes are blessed with priests as holy and zealous as Father James Carlin, who died in Newry on the 14th of October. But this priest and this layman, besides the common merit of doing eminently good work in their respective vocations in that fine old frontier town, had this in common also, that the same eloquent voice was heard beside their graves. Their Bishop, the Most Rev. Dr. Henry O'Neill, by whom these two close friends were greatly esteemed and loved, addressed as follows the vast gathering that followed to the grave the holy remains of Thomas Fegan : "The people of Newry, without distinction of class or creed, come here to-day to pay a tribute of respect to the memory of the good Christian, whose mortal remains are here before us. There VOL. XXXIV.-No. 402. 2 T have been, even in our own time, not a few who deserved well of their fellow-townsmen, and whose names are still kept in grateful remembrance; but I venture to say that not one of them all passed away with the same keen regret, the same sense of loss to the masses of our people, as the simple, unassuming, kindly man known to us all without prefix of any kind as Tom Fegan. And if we look for the explanation of this we shall find it in that spirit and exercise of charity towards the poor and the suffering, which was the characteristic virtue, the leading feature, of his life. Of this charity we have striking evidence in the noble institution which he built and endowed as a home for the aged poor and the orphan. All that he was able to gather was devoted to this sacred work, and for its interests he laboured up to the very last. Though his hand was always generously open to every form of charity, yet the claims of the poor-those who were ending the struggle of life and those who were just beginning itwere ever uppermost in his mind, and were the one great inspiring motive of all his industry and of all his toil. He never forgot that our Divine Lord left the poor to us as a special legacy, and that He regards as done to Himself whatever is done to them. This was with him an habitual, abiding thought. It was the secret of the strength which enabled him to work so devotedly and so continuously for the high purpose he had in view, and it was the one great consolation of a toilsome and lonely life which had in it but little of what the world calls pleasure. "His was a singularly unselfish character. He seemed never to think of himself, and of his own comforts, or his own convenience, when there was question of serving others, and especially God's poor. He never looked for praise, never sought publicity for his kindly deeds, never dreamt that he was anything out of the common, or that in the monotonous routine of his laborious life he was showing himself to be a Christian of the noblest type, as well as winning the regard and respect of the whole community. "He had in his time sacrifices to make to God, and though they cost him dear he made them with a quiet, brave resignation. Thirty years ago he parted, it may be said, from both his sonssons whom he loved with a deep and tender love that almost compensated them for the affection of the mother they had lost in their early boyhood. One died just as his dawinng manhood was giving the fairest promise of a most successful future. The father never showed in outward demeanour how keenly he felt the trial, but yet it almost broke his heart. The other,* who mourns his loss to-day, and with whom we all sympathize most deeply, he gave willingly and ungrudgingly to God in religion, without one thought of the loneliness the sacrifice would bring into his life and into his home. It was rapture to him, as I well remember, when the son's consecrated hands were left for the first time in blessing on his head, and it was always a simple joy to him to think that when his life's work was ended and a day like this had come, he would leave behind him one who would remember at God's altar the father who was so proud of him and loved him so dearly. "People trusted him in a way they trusted few. He was so transparently honest and so true. His advice and his help, when needed, were willingly given. His word was his bond, and his uprightness in all his dealings was proverbial. The friendship of a man like him was indeed something to be prized. For close on forty years I knew him intimately, and the remembrance of his friendship and of his many acts of kindness will last as long as I live, and his soul shall never be forgotten in my prayers. "But what a poor tribute mere human praise is to departed worth like his ! The love, the gratitude, the blessings, the prayers of the poor accompany him to the grave and beyond it, and are a far more fitting panegyric than any words of mine, a far more sterling token of respect and of affection than the fading wreaths we might place upon his coffin or spread upon his grave. What blessings must have come to him through the prayers of the many whose closing years were soothed and comforted by the kindly ministrations provided through his charity! What helps they must have secured for him in his last hours, for we may be sure they did not forget him in his hour of trial. and need. Neither will he be forgotten by those who still remain, or by those who hereafter may owe the same consolation to that charitable heart now cold in death, but of which the Home in our midst will ever be a living memorial. May we not aptly describe his life in the words of Holy Job-' He delivered the poor man that cried out and the fatherless that had no helper. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him. * The Rev. Henry Fegan, S.J., Clongowes College, Co. Kildare. He comforted the heart of the widow. He was an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, and a father to the poor'? Might we not truly say that he is one of those of whom it is written,' Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, from henceforth now, saith the spirit, that they may rest from their labours for their works follow them'? Yes, well, indeed, may we hope that after a life like his he has already entered into the rest and the reward promised to the faithful servant. We may, indeed, trust that when, on last Tuesday morning, time for him had ended for ever, he was received into the company of the just made perfect, and that he was welcomed with special love by that Divine Friend of the poor, whose example he had copied so faithfully during life. But if it should be that by reason of any fault unatoned for during life his entrance into bliss is delayed until the justice of God is completely satisfied, then, as we are still united with him in the great communion of Saints, it is the duty of our charity to assist him, as we can do, by our prayers, and to implore that God in His mercy will shorten the time of his exile and grant him speedier admission into the joys of his everlasting home. May eternal light be his, and may his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God, and the merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, rest in peace. In the account of the obsequies at which these touching words were spoken it was mentioned that the Bishop of Dromore was assisted by the Administrator of his cathedral parish, the Rev. James Carlin. Though Father Carlin was by no means robust, no one feared that he was soon to be taken from the devoted people among whom his whole priestly life had been spent. In the same " Old Chapel " beside the graveyard of Newry, on the 13th of October, 1906, not only the people of Newry, but the priests of the diocese of Dromore, gathered round the holy remains of one whom both priests and people revered and loved, while their Bishop addressed them thus: "Reverend Fathers, and dear Brethren, I shall trespass but briefly on your attention. Few words of mine are needed to voice the sorrow that is in so many hearts to-day. We are grieving for no common loss. Our diocese is much the poorer to-day by the death of a holy and a gifted priest. Our clergy lose from their ranks one who was the model of every sacerdotal virtue, and an honour to his sacred calling. The people of Newry mourn, and will long mourn the loss of one who throughout the twenty-seven years he lived and laboured amongst them was uniformly their father and friend and devoted priest. And as for me well, I cannot yet trust myself to speak of the keen personal trial it is to be deprived of the valued services of one who was ever to his Bishop the most loyal of helpers and the truest of friends. All was done that could be done to keep him with us. The good Sisters who were with him day and night throughout his trying illness nursed him with unremitting care. His medical attendant brought to the treatment of his case not merely the highest professional skill, but also a singular devotion and attention which could not well be surpassed and should not soon be forgotten. His brother priests were unsparing of themselves in their eagerness to give him every spiritual consolation, and to attend to his slightest wants. Over and over again holy Mass was offered up that God in His mercy might be pleased to restore him to health. Rosaries were recited for the same intention in the churches by devout congregations with a heartfelt earnestness that seemed to pierce the very clouds of heaven. The fervent prayers of our religious sisterhoods, here and elsewhere, ascended without ceasing to God's throne on his behalf, and in the schools the lisping voices of innocent children sent up to their Father in Heaven touching entreaties that He would leave with them a little longer that father on earth who loved them so dearly, and whom in return they loved with all the strength of their young childish hearts. "But it was not to be that our prayers should be answered in the way we desired. God's dealings with us, His creatures, are indeed wonderful, and though often with our feeble intelligence we understand them not, yet we know this for certainthat they are always fatherly and loving and meant for our good. And so, notwithstanding disappointed hopes, let us bow our bruised and anguished hearts before Him; and even here in the presence of the coffin that holds the mortal remains of the friend and priest we loved, let us say with true Christian resignation, and sincere submission of soul, 'Thou art good, O Lord, in all Thy ways'-Fiat voluntas Tua-' Thy will be done.' "The fifty years that Father Carlin lived do not make up a |