The Morning Star And Catholic Messenger

Appointment of Rt. Rev. W. H. Elder to the Archiepiscopal See of Baltimore.

Tuesday's Associated Press dispatches state that the Archbishop of New York has received a private telegram from Rome announcing the appointment of Bishop Elder to the See of Baltimore, made vacant by the death of Archbishop Spalding.

This announcement will take no one by surprise, as it was well known that Bishop Elder's name was one of the three recommended to the Holy See by the Bishops of the Province of Baltimore. And, moreover, when the death of Archbishop Spalding first caused the question to be discussed, the great piety and eminent learning for which Bishop Elder has always been distinguished, marked him out as one in every respect fitted for the position, and as a worthy successor to the great prelates who have occupied that exalted position.

In view of his appointment to the first position in the hierarchy of the Church in America, a short sketch of the new Archbishop of Baltimore will, no doubt, be of interest to our readers:

William Henry Elder was born in Baltimore on the 22d of March, 1819. He is a blood-relative of his lamented predecessor, Archbishop Spalding-both families being descended from one of the first settlers of Maryland. Educated at Mount St. Mary's College, where he graduated with the first honors, after a short vacation, he returned and entered the Theological Seminary at the same institution. He completed his course at the Propaganda in Rome, whence he was sent back as a missionary priest to his own country.

For many years his labors in Maryland were truly Apostolic-much of his time being devoted to the service of his most destitute and afflicted parishioners, and he would often go, on foot, a distance of six or eight miles, over a rugged country, to visit a solitary invalid negro. In 1857 he was consecrated Bishop of Natchez, in which See he has faithfully labored on, amidst poverty and privations, for the past fifteen years.