188 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS to the utmost, bnt now there was no prospect of further op- portunity at formal schooling. Upon arriving in New Or- leans he found employment in a grocery store, where he worked for the next two years in support of the family. A successful business career seemed to be the foredestined fu- ture of the young clerk, but a mission at his parish churoh fixed his determination upon the priesthood. It was natur- ally a painful sacrifice for the widowed mother to give him up, but her vivid Irish faith prompted cheerful resignation to the will of Providence. At the age of twenty-one young Gibbons left New Orleans for Baltimore to prepare himself for his chosen work of the ministry. After a tedious trip of sixteen days by boat, rail and stagecoach he entered St. Charles' College, EUicott City, near Baltimore. Here he spent two years in collegiate study, and then went to St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore for the sacred studies preparatory to ordination. His course at both places seems to have been markedly substantial rather than brilliant. He was fond of athletics, especially of football, which he indulged as intensely as he studied. His fine quali- ties of character made him a social favorite at college and in the seminary. There was abundant promise of a credita- ble career, but no one — he himself least of all — seems to have anticipated the distinction that he has actually achieved. He was ordained priest on June 30th of the eventful 1861. During the years of the war he was occupied in parish duty in Baltimore, work which he executed with his characteristic zeal and success. The city of Baltimore was fearfully divided in the great conflict. Strongly with the South in sympathy and quite as strongly with the Union on principle. Father Gibbons took no active part with either side, in order that he might be able to render the service of his ministry to both sides. His physical strength has always been much greater than his slight appearance would suggest, but it was not equal to the rigorous demands of his zeal in the first years of his ministry. So severely was his health overtaxed that it was thought at one time that he could live but a few months at .U
