Although his strength was gradually failing, Bishop Cheshire displayed during the next three years a remarkable activity. For one of his years he preserved an unusually tolerant attitude towards the many religious, social, and political changes of the day. When, on his eightieth birthday, he was asked what he thought of the youth of today, the Bishop replied: "The world is a much better place than it was when I was a young man.... Young people today have more personal religion than they did then."[59] While he disapproved of much that was done by the youth of today, he thought that his parents must have had much of the same sort of disapproval of his own generation. "When people talk," said the Bishop, "of the degeneration of the morals and manners of the present, and praise the good old times and old time religion, as being so much superior to the present, they do not know what the old times were, and in my opinion, they are often speaking nonsense. That is my very serious opinion."[60] In making this observation he did not mean to depreciate the religion of his forefathers, for no one had a greater respect and veneration for the past. During the last year of his life Bishop Cheshire filled almost all of his regular visitations in the eastern part of the Diocese. In addition, he spent ten days, in the month of July, visiting the country churches in the counties of Rowan, Mecklenburg, Davie, and Iredell. In the course of these visitations he called on forty families in the several parishes and missions. Such activity in midsummer would have taxed the strength of a far younger man, but it did not appear to trouble the Bishop. At the time, he wrote his son that although the heat was very severe, he noticed it no more than if he had been doing nothing. In June of 1932 the Bishop went to Hartford, Connecticut, to assist in the consecration of a new chapel at his alma mater, Trinity College. He enjoyed the trip thoroughly, renewing some of his old friendships and making new ones. By the fall of 1932 Bishop Cheshire's health was greatly impaired, but he continued his visitations through December 11. On that day he performed his last service. He confirmed a class of fifteen persons in the Church of the Good Shepherd, Raleigh, but was not able to preach the sermon. A few days later he went to Charlotte for treatment by a specialist. Shortly after entering the hospital, however, he became gradually worse. On December 27, at six-thirty in the evening, the Diocese of North Carolina lost its beloved Bishop.