'They said of me: 'He is rich, old, without wife or child; let us take from him, then, what he has.' Infatuated men! they knew not that it was an attempt to take from themselves, for I was laboring, and had labored all my life, not for myself, but for them and their children. Their attempts, however, made me not to swerve either to the right hand or to the left, although to see and feel so sorely their injustice and ingratitude made me often lament the frailty, the perversity, and sinfulness of our fallen nature. I persevered in an onward course, determined, as the steward and servant of my Master, to do them good whether they would have it or not. And I have so strove, so labored, to the last. The result is in the hands of Him who fixes and determines all results; he will do therewith as seemeth good unto himself.' Who was John McDonogh, the maker of the foregoing will, and contriver of such a grand scheme of charity? The answer to this inquiry will be the most interesting part of this narrative. John McDonogh was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1779. The only incidents of his youth that are known are, that he was a clerk in a mercantile store in an inland town of Maryland; that he was noted then for eccentricities, and for an excess of imagination, which led to the apprehension that he was not entirely of sound mind. Still his energy and intelligence secured him employment and the confidence of his employers. About the year 1800 he was sent out to New-Orleans by a house in Baltimore, with a letter of credit and considerable resources. He engaged largely in business, but soon renounced his agency, and starting on his own account, became a leading and prosperous merchant. In a few years he accumulated a large fortune--say at least three hundred thousand dollars--then a vast amount in the colony. He was one of the nabobs of the city. His style of living and habits conformed to his position and resources. His mansion was one of the most showy and luxurious in the city. He kept his carriages and horses, his cellar of costly wines, and entertained on a scale of great extravagance and sumptuousness. He was, in fact, the centre of fashion, frivolity, sociability, and even of the fashionable dissipations of the day. His person, which even in extreme old age was remarkable for dignity, erectness, and courtliness, at the period we write of, was conspicuous for all the graces of manhood. Indeed, he was styled the handsomest man in the colony. That such a young man should attract the favorable notice of ambitious Creole beauties who then composed the only female society in New-Orleans, of managing mothers, desirous of providing for their daughters, or of fathers, who, in addition to the latter motive, might also desire to secure a connection which might promote their own business prospects, was quite natural. The handsome American merchant, with his still handsomer fortune, was, therefore,