e great lesson of self-control. Blessed with a
wonderfully retentive memory, a logical mind that proceeded slowly, not
by impulse, his progress was solid and rapid; his progress in virtue was
no less so; every natural tendency to harsh and bitter judgment, or
word, was by the principles of religion and faith checked and brought
under control. If, in after life, he was regarded universally as mild
and gentle, the credit must be given to his religious training, which
enabled him to achieve the conquest.

A fine stone college was rising, and with his fellow-students he looked
forward with sanguine hope to the rapidly approaching day, when the
collegians of Mount St. Mary's were to tread halls worthy of their _Alma
Mater_, their faculty and themselves. Its progress was watched with deep
interest, when, in the summer of 1824, the students were roused one
Sunday night by the cry of fire. An incendiary hand had applied the
torch to the new edifice. No appliances were at hand for checking the
progress of the flames; professors, seminarians, and collegians labored
unremittingly to save their humble log structures destined to be for
some time more the scene of their studious hours.

McCloskey joined in the address of sympathy which the pupils of Mount
St. Mary's tendered to their venerated president. He beheld the energy
and faith of that eminent man in the zeal with which he began the work
anew, and completed the building again before the close of another year.
Thus the talented young Catholic boy from New York State learned not
only the lore found in books, but the great lessons of patience,
self-control, correspondence to the will of God. Before he closed his
college course, he saw Dr. Du Bois, called away from the institution he
had founded to assume, by command of the successor of St. Peter, the
administration of the diocese of New York. The good work continued under
Rev. Michael De Burgo Egan as President, and John McCloskey was
graduated, in 1828, with high honors. At that time Mount St. Mary's had
in the seminary twenty-five or thirty aspirants to the priesthood, and
in the college nearly one hundred students. The early graduates of the
Mount are the best proof of the thorough literary course followed there,
as well as the thorough knowledge and love of the faith inculcated.

Young McCloskey returned to the home of his mother in Westchester
County, N. Y., and looked forward to his future career in life. As often
happens