"As to my health these last ten days I cannot say much. My interior trials have been such that it would be impossible that my health should improve under them. As long as they last I must expect to suffer. I see nothing before me but darkness, and there is nothing within my soul but desolation and bitterness. Cut off from all that formerly interested me, banished as it were from home and country, isolated from everything, the doors of heaven shut, I feel overwhelmed with misery and crushed to atoms. My being away from my former duties is a negative relief; it frees me from the additional burden and trouble which would necessarily fall upon me if I were within reach."

"There remains nothing for me but to confide in, to follow, and abandon myself to that Guide who has directed me from the beginning. I read Job, Jeremias, and Thomas a Kempis, and meditate on the sufferings of Our Lord and the character of His death. I recall to mind what I have read on these matters in spiritual writers and the Lives of the Saints. I reflect how from the very nature of the purification of the soul this darkness, bitterness, and desolation must be; but not a drop of consolation is distilled into my soul. The only words which come to my lips are 'My soul is sad unto death,' and these I repeat and repeat again. At all times, in rising and in going to bed, in company and at my meals, I whisper them to myself, while to others I appear cheerful and join in the talk. At the most I can but die; this is the lot of all, and no one can tell the moment when.

"Withal, I try to have patience, resignation, endurance, and trust in God, waiting on His guidance and leaving all in His hands."

"Since my last I have had some relief from my interior trials, and no sooner does this take place than my body recovers some of its strength. It would not have been possible for me to have borne much longer the desolation which filled my soul. Each new trial, when passed, leaves me more quiet and tranquil. Past periods of my life give me hope that this trial will also come to an end. What will that be? How will it happen? and when? God alone knows. He that has led me so many years still guides me, and resistance to His will is worse than vain. Judging from that same past, my expectations to return to my former labors are not sanguine. It seems to me sometimes that I am cut off from these to be prepared for a deeper and broader basis for future action. But whether this will be so or not, is in the hands of God. Whatever He wills me to do, I must do it. My own will has become null, and all that is left for me to do is to wait on His good pleasure and His own time. To act or not to act, to suffer or not to suffer, to speak or to keep silence, to return to my former labors or never to return, to live on or die, all have become indifferent to me. I am in God's hands, with no will of my own; for He has taken it, and it is for Him to do with me whatever He pleases. If this be a source of pain to others, none but God knows what it has cost me. There as nothing, therefore, left but to wait in trust on God's will and His mercy and good pleasure."

And again the darkened heavens are above him:

"Death invited, alas! will not come. What a relief it would be from a continuous and prolonged death!"

The obscurity of the drawing of the Holy Ghost, as well as of God's designs, and his incessant fretting against this, partly involuntary and, as he confesses, partly voluntary also, "disturbs my health and reduces my strength."

Next to the evil self-company of an unforgiven sinner there is no loneliness so sad as that of the invalid. He needs company most who is worst company for himself. Yet Father Hecker has not left a single word which would suggest that during more than two years of absence from all his life associates in religion, as well as from his blood kindred, whom he loved with a powerful love, he felt the lack of human companionship. One reason for this was his contemplative nature, and this was the main reason. He was born to be a hermit, and was an active liver only by being born again for a special vocation. Another reason was that his mind was so constituted that, when subjected to trial, it rested better when quite out of sight of everybody and everything associated with past responsibilities. He bade adieu to Father Deshon when the latter left him at Ragatz with sorrow, but without reluctance; and when a year afterwards at was suggested that one of the community should come to Europe and keep him company, he refused without hesitation, saying that his companion would be burdened with a sick man's infirmities, or the sick man distressed by his companion's inactivity on his account. But towards the very end of his life there were times when he felt the need of congenial company and was extremely grateful for it. But this did not happen often, and when it did it was because the waves of despondency which submerged him were heavier and darker than usual.

The following extract from a letter shows this state of mind:

"As I get somewhat more accustomed to my separation from all that was so dear to me, the strangeness of my position seems to me more and more inexplicable. All the things which are going on in Fifty-ninth Street were once all to me, and nothing appeared beyond. To be separated from all; to look upon one's past as a dream; to become a stranger to one's self, wandering from city to city, from country to country, ever in a strange land and among strangers; to be attached to nothing; to see no definite future; to be an enigma to one's self; to find no light in any one to guide me, isolated from all except God—who will explain what all this means? where it will end? and how soon? As I become resigned to this state of things my health suffers less. Occasionally my interior trials and struggles are almost insupportable, but less so than if I were surrounded by those who have an affection for me. To worry others without their being able to give me any relief would only increase my suffering, and finally become unbearable. All is for the best! God's will be done!"

What he wrote to a friend suffering from illness he applied to himself; he made spiritual profit, as best he might, from separation from the men and the vocation he loved so well:

"I can sympathize with you more completely in your sickness being myself not well. To be shut off from the world, and cut off from human activity—and this is what it means to be sick—gives the soul the best conditions to love God alone, and this is Paradise upon earth. Blessed sickness! which detaches the soul from all creatures and unites it to its sovereign Good. But one's duties and responsibilities, what of these in the meantime? We must give them all up one day, and why not now? We think ourselves necessary, and others try to make us believe the same; there is but little truth and much self-love in this. 'What else do I require of thee,' says our Lord in Thomas a Kempis, 'than that thou shouldst resign thyself integrally to Me.' This is what our Lord is fighting for in our souls."

Yet in having his life-work torn away from him he was like a man whose leg has been crushed and then amputated, the phantom of the lost limb aching in every muscle, bone, and nerve. This was partly the secret of his pain while in Europe, at the mere thought of his former active life; it haunted him with memories of its lost opportunities, its shortcomings in motive or achievement, or what he fancied to be such, in view of the Divine justice, now always reckoning with him.

He was ever cheerful in word, even when the pallor of his face and the blazing of his eyes betrayed his bodily and spiritual pain. "The end of religion is joy, joy here no less than joy hereafter," he once insisted, and he argued long and energetically for the proposition; but meantime he was racked with inner agony and was too feeble to walk alone. In his letters and diaries he speaks of his illness and of its symptoms as of those of another person of whom he was giving news.

His wanderings in Europe were like gropings after the Divine will in the midst of the spirit's night, often in anguish, often in tranquillity, never in his former bounding joy, always with submission, beforehand, at the moment, and afterwards. Although the Divine Will gave a cold welcome, he sought no other refuge.

"There are a thousand things," he writes, "that would worry me if I would only let them, but with God's help I keep them on at arm's length. His grace suffices, or in His presence all the things of this world disappear. God alone has been always the whole desire of my heart, and what else can I wish than that His will may be wholly fulfilled in me. Having rooted everything else out of my heart, and cut me off from all things, what other desire can I have than that He who has begun the work should finish it according to His design. It is not important that I should know what that design is; it is enough that I am in His hands, to do with me whatever He pleases. To be and to live in His presence is all."

And again:

"The mind quiet both as to the past and the future, contented with the present moment: as to the past, leaving it out of sight; as to the future, unsolicitous. As to the present, satisfied to be outwardly homeless, cut on from all past friendships and relations. The present gives me all the conditions required for preparation for the future. Any time these two years past I would have made an entire renunciation of all relations to my past labors and position, but waited as a dictate of prudence. Now I feel ready to make it with calmness and in view of all its consequences."

"No sooner do I set my mind to pray than God fills it with Himself," Father Hecker was once heard to say. And this power of prayer by no means left him after 1872; only that the God who filled him was no longer revealed as the Supreme Love, but as the Supreme Majesty. "There was once a priest," he said, speaking of himself, "who had been very active for God, until at last God gave him a knowledge of the Divine Majesty. After seeing the Majesty of God that priest felt very strange and was much humbled, and knew how little a thing he was in comparison with God." Comparison with God! It was this that gave him, as it did Job, a terror of the Divine justice beyond words to express, and impressed that air of spiritual dejection upon him which struck his old friends as so strongly in contrast with his former happy and vivacious manners. "You will never know," he once said, while being helped into bed after a very sad day, "how much I have suffered till you are in heaven." Meantime this awful Deity, so prompt to enter Father Hecker's mind, coming at times like a withering blast from the desert, was still the only attraction of his soul, the only object of his love. He could no more keep his mind off God now than he could before, and now God killed him, and then He made him alive. The ideas of the Divine goodness, patience, mercy, and love which formerly welled up in abundant floods at the thought of God, at the same thought now were dried up and disappeared. "Oh!" he once exclaimed, "if I could only be sure that I shall not be damned!" This was said unawares while listening to the life of a saint. The reader will, therefore, understand that Father Hecker's inner trouble was not a state of mere aridity, a difficulty of concentration of mind on spiritual things, or a vagrancy of thought; it was a perpetual facing of his Divine Accuser and Judge, a trembling woe at the sight of Infinite Majesty on the part of one for whom the Divine love was the one necessary of life for soul and body. Yet he knew that this was really a higher form of prayer than any he had yet enjoyed, that it steadily purified his understanding by compelling ceaselessly repeated acts of faith in God's love, purified his will by constant resignation of every joy except God alone—God received by any mode in which it might please the Divine Majesty to reveal Himself. He was, therefore, willing, nay, in a true sense, glad thus to walk by mere faith and live by painful love. "I should deem it a misfortune if God should cure me of my infirmities and restore me to active usefulness, so much have I learned to appreciate the value of my passive condition of soul." This he said less than three years before his death. And about the same time, to a very intimate friend: "God revealed to me in my novitiate that at some future time I should suffer the crucifixion. I have always longed for it; but oh, now that it has come it is hard, oh, it is terrible!" And this he said weeping.

One aspect of the Divine Majesty which threatened for years to overpower him was the Last Judgment. "God has given me to see the terrors of the day of judgment," he once said, "and it has tried me with dreadful severity; but it is a wonderfully great privilege." Humility grew upon him day by day. No one who knew him well in his day of greatest power could think him a proud man, but his confidence in his vocation, and in himself is God's representative, had been immense. The following, from a memorandum, shows how he ended:

"I told him how courageous I felt. Answer: That is the way I used to feel. I used to say, O Lord! I feel as if I had the whole world on my shoulders; and all I've got to say is, O Lord! I am sorry you've given me such small potatoes to carry on my back. But now—well, when a mosquito comes in I say, Mosquito, have you any good to do me? Yes? Then I thank you, for I am glad to get good from a mosquito."

It will thus be seen that whatever diseases may have enfeebled Father Hecker's body, his spirit suffered from a malady known only to great souls—thirst for God. This gave him rest neither day nor night, or allowed him intervals of peace only to return with renewed force. Some men love gold too much for their peace of mind, some love women too much, and some power; men like Father Hecker love the Infinite Good too much to be happy in soul or sound in body unless He be revealed to them as a loving father. And this knowledge of God once possessed and lost again, although it breeds a purer, a more perfectly disinterested love, leaves both soul and body in a state of acute distress. "My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee, in a dry and desert land without water."

Tried by these visitations, he was free to acknowledge that in past times he had been favored above others:

"Oh! there was a time," he said, "when I was borne along high above nature by the grace of God, and I feared that I should die without being subject to nature, and should never feel the need of the supernatural. But for many years now I have been left by God to my natural weakness and get nothing whatever except what I earn."

The following words of his indicate the cleansing process of these divine influences; it is from memoranda:

"He said to me once, after he had been for nine or ten years subject to almost unceasing desolation of spirit, 'all this suffering, though it has been excruciating, has greatly purified me and was of the last necessity to me. Oh, how proud I was! how vain I was! And these long years of abandonment by God have healed me.' I think this was the only time I ever knew him to connect his sufferings with fault. What he said may have referred to the mere temper and frame of his mind rather than to particular, specific faults. He undoubtedly thought more highly of human nature before that desolation began than he did at the end of it."

Meantime he used every aid for the assuagement of his interior sufferings, just as he conscientiously tried every means for the restoration of his bodily health. Good books helped him greatly. He recited his Breviary as he would read a new and interesting book, underlining here and there, and noting on the margins. But during most of his time of illness his infirmities made the Divine Office impossible. Every day he read or had read to him some parts of the Scriptures in English. "Without the Book of Job," he used to say, "I would have broken down completely." Lallemant, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa, St. Catherine of Genoa, and other authors of a mystical tendency he frequently used. But next to the Scriptures no book served him so well during his illness as Abandonment, or Entire Surrender to Divine Providence, a small posthumous treatise of Father P. J. Caussade, S.J., edited and published by Father H. Ramiere, S.J., with a strong defence of the author's doctrine by way of preface. At Father Hecker's suggestion it we translated into English by Miss Ella McMahon, and has already soothed many hearts in difficulties of every kind. It is an ingenious compendium of all spiritual wisdom, but it seemed to Father Hecker that submission to the Divine Will is taught in its pages as it has never been done since the time of the Apostles. The little French copy which he used is thumbed all to pieces. He used it incessantly when in great trouble of mind and knew it almost by heart. As he read its sentences or heard them read he would ejaculate, "Ah, how sweet that is!" "Oh, what a great truth!" "Oh, that is a most consoling doctrine!" just as a man exhausted with thirst and covered with dust, as he drinks and bathes at a gushing fountain in the desert, calls out and sighs and smiles.

Did he not find men here and there in his travels with whom he would take counsel and who could comfort him? There is little trace of it, though he never lacked sympathetic friends for his bodily ailments. In truth he tried to maintain a cheerful exterior, though occasionally he failed in his attempts to do so. Only once do we find by his letters and diaries that he opened his mind freely on his interior difficulties while in Europe, and that was to Cardinal Deschamps, who gave him, he writes, very great comfort.

No part of his sojourn in the Old World pleased and profited him so much as his trip up the Nile in the winter of 1873-4.

"In information of most various kinds," he writes, "it has been the richest four months of my whole life. The value intellectually and religiously as well as physically is incalculable. Given but one trip, it would puzzle me to name any which can compare with that up the Nile to Wady-Halfa. Nubia must be included. It has something of its own which you can find neither in Egypt nor elsewhere: silence, repose, almost total solitude, and its own peculiar people."

His companions were few in number and congenial in tastes, the climate mild and equable, and the people and country altogether novel. The journey, which extended into Nubia, was made in a flat-boat, the Sittina Miriam el Adra—Our Lady Mary the Virgin—the sail propelling them when the wind was fair, the crew towing them in calm weather; when the wind was contrary they tied up to the bank. The progress was, of course, slow, and yet his diary, the only one written during his illness with ample entries, shows that every day gave new enjoyment. He was provided with letters which enabled him to say Mass at the missionary stations along the river. The wonderful ruins of the ancient cities of Egypt gave him much entertainment. But his mind dwelt fondly on thoughts of Abraham, Joseph, and the chosen people, and especially upon the Holy Family, as well as the monks of the desert. He was much interested in the Mohammedan natives; their open practice of prayer, the instinctive readiness with which the idea of God and of eternity was welcomed to their thoughts, and, withal, their utter religious stagnation, which he traced to their ignorance of the Trinity, filled his mind with questions. How to convert these sluggish contemplatives, what type of Catholicity would be likely to flourish in the East, and how it could be reconciled with the stirring traits of the West, busied his mind. He often recalls his distant friends and contrasts new America with old Egypt. He wrote home when opportunity served, as thus to Father Hewit:

"With the hope that this note will reach you in due season, I greet you from this land from which Moses taught, and which our infant Saviour trod, with a right merry Christmas and a happy New Year to yourself and all the members of the community, all in the house, and the parishioners of St. Paul's. In my prayers all have a share and in the Holy Sacrifice of the altar. My heart and its affections are present with you. Could I realize its desire, I would shed a continuous flow of blessings on each one of you like a great river Nile—the river which Abraham saw and whose banks were hallowed by the footsteps of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Remember me especially in all your prayers on these great festivals. Offer up a Mass for my special intention on each of them."

The excursion to Nubia and back did him so much good physically, and left his mind with a peace which seemed so settled, that for a time he had strong hopes of recovery; but he was soon undeceived.

On the 15th of April Father Hecker left Cairo for Jerusalem, and spent some weeks in the Holy Land, continuing to enjoy an interval of spiritual relief. He writes:

"In reciting the Gloria and the Credo, after having been in the localities where the great mysteries which they express took place, one is impressed in a wonderful manner with their actuality. The truths of our holy faith seem to saturate one's blood, enter into one's flesh, and penetrate even to the marrow of one's bones."

The first greeting which he sent from the holy places was a letter to his mother, full of expressions of the most tender affection and gratitude, as well as of ardent religious emotions produced by moving among the scenes of our Lord's life. He enclosed a little bunch of wild flowers plucked from Mount Sion. He soon returned to Europe to escape the hot summer of Palestine, and began his round of visits to health resorts, shrines, and occasionally to a friend of more than usual attraction. His brother John died about this time, and this news drew from him a letter of encouragement and condolence to their mother. To George Hecker and his wife he wrote often, his letters being full of affection, of entire submission to the Divine Will, and of religious sentiments.

The following may be of interest as indicating the return of his disconsolate frame of mind:

"I have taken to writing fables. Here is one: Once upon a time a bird was caught in a snare. The more it struggled to free itself, the more it got entangled. Exhausted, it resolved to wait with the vain hope that the fowler, when he came, would set it at liberty. His appearance, however, was not the signal for its restoration to smiling fields and fond companions, but the forerunner of death at his hands. Foolish bird! why did you go into the snare? Poor thing; it could not find food anywhere, and it was famishing with hunger; the seed was so attractive, and he who had baited the trap knew it full well, and that the bird could not resist its appetite. The fowler is our Lord. The bait is Divine Love. The bird is the soul. O skillful catcher of souls! O irresistible bait of Divine Love! O pitiable victim! but most blessed soul; for in the hands of our Lord the soul only dies to self to be transformed into God."

In all his journeyings in search of beneficial change of air or for the use of medicinal waters, he endeavored to take in the famous shrines; as for places noted in profane history, or the usual resorts of tourists, there is not the least mention of them in his letters, unless an exception be made in favor of those in Egypt and some art galleries in Europe. But, "attracted by St. Catherine," he went back to her relics at Genoa once more. Drawn by St. Francis de Sales, he made a visit to Annecy which had a soothing effect upon him, for that saint was another of his favorites. He often went out of his way to see a friend, or to seek the acquaintance of some man or woman of reputation in religious circles, and he was himself surprised at the number of those who had heard of him and wished to know him. He readily formed acquaintances, and American, English, and French fellow-travellers could easily have his conversation and company on condition that they would converse on religious matters, or on the graver social and racial topics. It was not a little singular that, although suffering from weakness of the nervous system, he could talk abstruse philosophy by the hour without mental fatigue. Discussing such points as the different movements of nature and grace, the various theories of apprehending the existence of God, or how to bring about conviction in the minds of non-Catholics on the claims of the Church, he could tire the strong brain of a well man. It was the things below which tired him. He illustrated his conversation by gleams of light reflected from his past experience. When circumstances condemn such generous souls as Father Hecker to inactivity, a favorite solace is picking up fragments of work or recalling high ideas from the crowded memory of their former zeal, often with much profit to those who listen. And this was no idle-minded or boastful trait in him, as we see from the following:

"Be assured I shall not follow my own will if I can help it. Every dictate of prudence and wisdom will be my guide. Until the clouds clear away I shall be quiet, waiting, watching and praying, seeking for light wherever there is a reasonable prospect of obtaining it. In the meanwhile my time is not misspent. The journeys which I have made, the persons whom I have met on my way—these and a thousand other things incident to my present way of life are the best of educators for improving one's mind, for correcting one's judgments, and for giving greater breadth to one's thoughts. . . . It seems to me that I almost see visibly and feel palpably the blessing of divine grace on the work of the community, in its harmony, in the success of its missions, in the special graces to its members, in their cheerfulness and zeal: all this, too, in my absence. My absence, therefore, cannot be displeasing to the Divine Will; rather these things seem to indicate the contrary, and they awake in my soul an inexpressible consolation."

But he said to one of his brethren afterwards: "Oh, father! I was sad all the time that I was in Europe. Why so? Well, it was because I was away from home, away from my work, away from my companions. And that was why I attached myself while there to those persons who felt as we did, and were of like views, and participated in our aims and purposes."

How he felt about his chances of recovery is shown by the following:

"I have nothing further to say about my health than that I have none. Were I twelve hours, or six, in my former state of health, my conscience would give me no moment of peace in my present position. It would worry me and set me to work. As it is I am tranquil, at peace, and doing nothing except willingly bearing feebleness and inertia."

From Paris, June 2, 1874, he writes to George and Josephine Hecker of a visit to Cardinal Deschamps in Brussels, where he met his old director, Father de Buggenoms. He expressed himself fully to them about the state of religion in Europe, and, although both were his admirers and warm friends, it was only on the third day that he made himself fully understood, and disabused their minds of reserves and suspicions. But before leaving "a complete understanding, warm sympathy, and entire approval" was the result. In one of the earlier



CHAPTERs of this Life we have adverted to Father Hecker's difficulty in making himself understood. On this occasion he suffered much pain, for which, he says, the joy of the final agreement amply repaid him.

He formed an intimate friendship with the Abbe Xavier Dufresne, a devout and enlightened priest of Geneva, and with his father, Doctor Dufresne, well known as the mainstay of all the works of charity and religion in that city. The Abbe Dufresne became much attached to Father Hecker. "The Almighty knows," he wrote to him, "how ardently I wish to see you again, for no one can feel more than I the want of your conversation, it was so greatly to my improvement." We have received from the Abbe Dufresne a memorial of Father Hecker, which is valuable as independent contemporary testimony. It is so appreciative and so instructive that we shall give the greater part of it as an appendix, together with two letters from Cardinal Newman written after Father Hecker's death.

The following is from a letter from Mrs. Craven, written early in 1875:

"That we have thought of you very often I need not tell you, nor yet that we have thought and talked of and pondered over the many and the great subjects which have been discussed during this week of delightful repose and solitude (though certainly not of silence). Let me, for one, tell you that many words of yours will be deeply and gratefully and usefully remembered, and that I feel as if all you explained to us in particular concerning the inward life which alone gives meaning and usefulness to outward signs and symbols (let them be ever so sacred), and the ways and means of quickening that inward life, all come home to me as a clear expression of my own thoughts by one who had read them better than myself."

Such was a devout and intellectual Frenchwoman's way of describing an influence similarly felt by men and women of all classes, and of the most diverse schools of thought, whom Father Hecker met in Europe.

This was written on hearing news of the community:

"It is consoling to see all these good works progressing [in the Paulist community]. To me they sound more like an echo of my past than the actual present. Before going up the Nile I used to say to some of my friends, that I once knew a man whose name was Hecker, but had lost his acquaintance, and I was going up the Nile to find him. Perhaps I would overtake him at Wady-Halfa in Nubia! But I didn't. Sometimes I think the search is in vain, and that I shall have to resign myself to his loss and begin a new life. Tuesday of this week my intention is to go to Milan and stop some days. I find friends in almost every city. Friday last I dined with the Archbishop of Turin, and have made the acquaintance of one or two priests here. Occasionally I visit museums, picture galleries, etc.; and thus time is outwardly passing by, until it pleases God to shed more light on my soul, and to impart more strength to my body, and make clear my path."

Here are his impressions of Rome after its occupation by the Italians, together with an account of an audience with the Holy Father:

"Rome is indeed changed, not so much outwardly, materially, as in spiritual atmosphere. It has lost its Christian exorcism and returned to its former pagan condition. The modern spirit, too, has entered it with activity in the material order. The old order, I fear, is never to return; that is to say, as it was; if it returns at all it will be on another basis. The last citadel has given way to the invasion of modern activity and push. Who would have dreamed of this twenty years ago? The charm of Rome is gone, even to non-Catholics, for they felt raised above themselves into a more congenial and spiritual atmosphere while here, and their souls enjoyed it, though their intellectual prejudices were opposed to the principles. The charm they were conscious of forced them back again to Rome in spite of themselves. But that charm has in a great measure gone.

"The other evening I had a very pleasant private audience with the Holy Father. Among other matters I showed him The Young Catholic which pleased him very much. He was struck with the size of the jackass in the picture of Ober-Ammergau, and asked if they grew so large in that country. I replied: 'Holy Father, asses nowadays grow large everywhere.' He laughed heartily and said, 'Bene trovato.'"

Father Hecker was in Rome when, in March, 1875, his old friend and patron and first spiritual adviser, Archbishop McCloskey, was made Cardinal. He was much rejoiced, and sent the Cardinal a rich silk cassock, and gave a public banquet to Monsignor Roncetti and Doctor Ubaldi, who were to carry the insignia of the cardinalate to New York. We are indebted to the kindness of Archbishop Corrigan for a copy of Father Hecker's letter of congratulation, the principal parts of which we subjoin. The view of public policy concerning the College of Cardinals expressed in this letter was developed at length in an article published by Father Hecker in The Catholic World, when Cardinal Gibbons was appointed; it will also be found in his latest volume, The Church and the Age:

"The choice of the Supreme Pontiff in making you the first Cardinal of the hierarchy of the United States gives great satisfaction here to all your friends. For as honors and dignities in the Church proceed by way of distinguished merit and abilities, the qualities which they have always recognized and esteemed in you are by the event made known to the whole world.

"This elevation to the cardinalate of an American prelate as a cheering sign that the dignities of the Church are open to men of merit of all nations, and it is to be hoped that every nation will be represented in the College of Cardinals in proportion to its importance, and in that way the Holy See will represent by its advisers the entire world, and render its universality more complete. The Church will be a gainer, and the world too; and I have no doubt that your appointment to this office in the Church will be, from this point of view, popular with the American people."

His continued and insensibly increasing weakness of body, as well as what seemed an unconquerable mental aversion to attempting even partially to resume his former career in the United States, seemed to settle negatively the question of his early return home. He began to think that it was God's will that he should permanently transfer his influence to the old World. His mind was full of the religious problems of Europe, and the notion of Paulists for Europe, differing in details from American Paulists but identical in spirit, soon occupied his thoughts. The reader will remember Father Hecker's conviction, expressed when leaving Rome after the Vatican Council, that the condition of things in the Old World invited the apostolate of a free community of wholly sanctified men, such as he would have the Paulists to be. He now became persuaded, or almost so, that God meant his illness to be the means of practically inaugurating such a movement. By it the dim outlines of men's yearnings for a religious awakening, which he everywhere met with among the European nations, could be brought out distinctly and realized by an adaptation of the essentials of community life to changed European conditions. He thought he could select the leading spirits for the work, and, without overtaxing his strength, teach them the principles and inspire them with the spirit necessary to success. All this is brought forward in his letters and discussed. But it was not to be in his time.

The following entries in his journal, made during the Lent of 1879, have this European, or rather universal, apostolate in view:

"The Holy Spirit is preparing the Church for an increased infusion of Himself in the hearts of the faithful. This increased action of the Holy Spirit will renew the whole face of the earth, in religion and in society. Souls will be inspired by Him to assist in bringing about this end.

"The question is how shall such souls co-operate with Him in preparation for this extraordinary outpouring of divine grace? The law of all extensive and effectual work is that of association. The inspiration and desire and strength to co-operate and associate in facilitating this preparation for the Holy Spirit must come to each soul from the Holy Spirit Himself.

"What will be the nature of this association and the special character of its work? The end to be had in view will be to set on foot a means of co-operation with the Church in the conquest of the whole world to Christ, the renewal of the Apostolic spirit and life. For unity, activity, and choice of means reliance should be had upon the bond of charity in the Holy Spirit and upon His inspirations.

"The central truth to actuate the members should be the Kingdom of Heaven within the soul, which should be made the burden of all sermons, explaining how it is to be gained now.

"Men will be called for who have that universal synthesis of truth which will solve the problems, eliminate the antagonisms, and meet the great needs of the age; men who will defend and uphold the Church against the attacks which threaten her destruction, with weapons suitable to the times; men who will turn all the genuine aspirations of the age, in science, in socialism, in politics, in spiritism, in religion, which are now perverted against the Church, into means of her defence and universal triumph.

"If it be asked, therefore, in what way the co-operation with the new phase of the Church in the increase of intensity and expansion of her divine life in the souls of men is to be instituted, the answer is as follows: By a movement . . . springing from the synthesis of the most exalted faith with all the good and true in the elements now placed in antagonism to the Church, thus eliminating antagonisms and vacating controversies. . . .'

"Can a certain number of souls be found who are actuated by the instinct of the Holy Spirit, the genius of grace, to form an associative effort in the special work of the present time? If there be such a work, and an associative effort be necessary, will not the Holy Spirit produce in souls, certain ones at least, such a vocation? Is not the bond of unity in the Holy Spirit which will unite such souls all that is needed in the present state of things to do this work?"





CHAPTER XXXIII

"THE EXPOSITION OF THE CHURCH"

WHILE in Europe God opened Father Hecker's soul to the cries of the nations. He was profoundly interested in the state of religion there, and the persecutions suffered by Catholics in Germany, in Switzerland, and in Italy during his stay, while it aroused his sympathies, increased his desire to find a remedy, and a fundamental one, for the evils from which the Church suffered. The peoples of the Old World, with their differing tendencies, were incessantly disputing in his mind. They were always displaying over against each other their diverse traits of race and tradition, at the same time that they were actually passing before his eyes in his constant journeyings in search of health.

What amazed and no less irritated Father Hecker was the political apathy of Catholics. All the active spirits seemed to hate religion. A small minority of anti-Christians was allowed entire control of Italy and France, and exhibited in the government of those foremost Catholic commonwealths a pagan ferocity against everything sacred; and this was met by "timid listlessness" on the part of the Catholic majority. These latter evaded the accusation of criminal cowardice by an extravagant display of devotional religion. To account for this anomaly and to offer a remedy for it, Father Hecker in the winter of 1875 published a pamphlet of some fifty pages, entitled An Exposition of the Church in View of Recent Difficulties and Controversies and the Present Needs of the Age. It is a brief outline of his views, held more or less distinctly since his case in Rome in 1857-8, but fully unfolded in his mind at the Vatican Council and matured during his present sojourn in Europe; the reader has already been given a summary of them in a letter treating of the providential meaning of the Vatican decrees.

What is the matter with Catholics, that they allow their national life, in education, in art, in literature, in general politics, to be paganized by petty cliques of unbelievers? How account for this weakness of character in Catholics? The answer is that the devotional and ascetical type on which they are formed is one calculated to repress individual activity, a quality essential to political success in our day. Energy in the world of modern politics is not the product of the devotional spirit dominant on the continent of Europe. That spirit in its time saved the Church, for it fostered submission when the temptation was to revolt.

"The exaggeration," says the Exposition, "of personal authority on the part of Protestants brought about in the Church its greater restraint, in order that her divine authority might have its legitimate exercise and exert its salutary influence. The errors and evils of the times [the Reformation era] sprang from an unbridled personal independence, which could only be counteracted by habits of increased personal dependence. Contraria contrariis curantur. The defence of the Church and the salvation of the soul were [under these circumstances] ordinarily secured at the expense, necessarily, of those virtues which properly go to make up the strength of Christian manhood. The gain was the maintenance and victory of divine truth, and the salvation of the soul. The loss was a certain falling off in energy, resulting in decreased action in the natural order. The former was a permanent and inestimable gain. The latter was a temporary and not irreparable loss."

The passive virtues, fostered under an overruling Providence for the defence of threatened external authority in religion, and producing admirable effects of uniformity, discipline, and obedience, served well in the politics of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras, when nearly all governments were absolute monarchies; but the present governments are republics or constitutional monarchies, and are supposed to be ruled by the citizens themselves. This demands individual initiative, active personal exertion and direct interference in public affairs. Vigilant and courageous voters rule the nations. Therefore, without injury to entire obedience, the active virtues in both the natural and supernatural orders must be mainly cultivated; in the first order everything that makes for self-reliance, and in the second the interior guidance of the Holy Spirit in the individual soul. This, the Exposition maintains, is the way out of present difficulties. That it is the Providential way out, is shown by most striking evidence: the diversion of the anti-Catholic forces from the attack against authority to one against the most elementary principles of religion—God, conscience, and immortality; the drift of Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic minds of a religious cast towards the Church, calling for spiritual attractions in accordance with the independence of character peculiar to those races; the hopeless failure of the post-Reformation methods to meet the needs of the hour; and especially the Vatican decrees, which have set at rest all controversy on authority among Catholics. The needs of the times, therefore, call for virtues among Catholics which shall display the personal force of Catholic life no less than that which is organic. These must all centre around the cultivation of the Holy Spirit in the individual soul.

"The light the age requires for its renewal," says the Exposition, "can only come from the same source. The renewal of the age depends on the renewal of religion. The renewal of religion depends upon the greater effusion of the creative and renewing power of the Holy Spirit. The greater effusion of the Holy Spirit depends on the giving of increased attention to His movements and inspirations in the soul. The radical and adequate remedy for all the evils of our age, and the source of all true progress, consist in increased attention and fidelity to the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul. 'Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.'"

The following extract gives the synthesis of the twofold action of the Holy Spirit, showing how external authority and obedience to it are amply secured by the interior virtues:

"The Holy Spirit in the external authority of the Church acts as the infallible interpreter and criterion of divine revelation. The Holy Spirit in the soul acts as the Divine Life-giver and Sanctifier. It is of the highest importance that these two distinct offices of the Holy Spirit should not be confounded. The supposition that there can be any opposition, or contradiction, between the action of the Holy Spirit in the supreme decisions of the authority of the Church, and the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in the soul, can never enter the mind of an enlightened and sincere Christian. The Holy Spirit, which through the authority of the Church teaches divine truth, is the same Spirit which prompts the soul to receive the divine truths which He teaches. The measure of our love for the Holy Spirit is the measure of our obedience to the authority of the Church. . . . There is one Spirit, which acts in two different offices concurring to the same end, the regeneration and sanctification of the soul.

"In case of obscurity or doubt concerning what is the divinely revealed truth, or whether what prompts the soul is or is not an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recourse must be had to the Divine Teacher or criterion, the authority of the Church. For it must be borne in mind that to the Church, as represented in the first instance by St. Peter, and subsequently by his successors, was made the promise of her Divine Founder, that 'the gates of hell should never prevail against her.' No such promise was ever made by Christ to each individual believer. 'The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of Truth.' The test, therefore, of a truly enlightened and sincere Christian will be, in case of uncertainty, the promptitude of his obedience to the voice of the Church.

"From the above plain truths the following practical rule of conduct may be drawn: The Holy Spirit is the immediate guide of the soul in the way of salvation and sanctification; and the criterion, or test, that the soul is guided by the Holy Spirit, is its ready obedience to the authority of the Church. This rule removes all danger whatever, and with it the soul can walk, run, or fly, if it chooses, in the greatest safety and with perfect liberty, in the ways of sanctity."

"The practical aim of all true religion is to bring each individual soul under the immediate guidance of the Divine Spirit. The Divine Spirit communicates Himself to the soul by means of the sacraments of the Church. The Divine Spirit acts as the interpreter and criterion of revealed truth by the authority of the Church. The Divine Spirit acts as the principle of regeneration and sanctification in each Christian soul.

"Such an exposition of Christianity, the union of the internal with the external notes of credibility, is calculated to produce a more enlightened and intense conviction of its divine truth in the faithful, to stimulate them to a more energetic personal action; and, what is more, it would open the door to many straying but not altogether lost children, for their return to the fold of the Church. The increased action of the Holy Spirit, with a more vigorous co-operation on the part of the faithful, which is in process of realization, will elevate the human personality to an intensity of force and grandeur productive of a new era in the Church and to society; an era difficult for the imagination to grasp, and still more difficult to describe in words, unless we have recourse to the prophetic language of the inspired Scriptures."

It is thus made plain that Father Hecker does not deny the harmony between the devotional spirit and practices prevalent in different ages of the Church; but he calls attention to the fact that the dominant note of one age is not always the same as that in another. And in using the words criterion and test, descriptive of the Church, he would convey their full meaning: not merely a plumb-line for the rising wall but divine accuracy itself made external. His outer criterion is to the inner life what articulate speech is to the human voice.

"The Exposition is nothing else," he writes home, "than a general outline of a movement from without to within; as in the sixteenth century the movement was one from within to without. This was occasioned by the nature of the attack of Protestantism. The Church having with increased [external] agencies protected what was assaulted, can return to her normal course with increased action. I give an indication of the nature of this movement:

"An increased action of the Holy Spirit in the soul in consequence of this greater attention directed to the interior life, and a more perfect explanation of the same. An exposition of the relation of the external to the internal in the Church. The action of the Holy Spirit in the soul and His gifts are the remedies for the evils of our times. The development of the intelligible side of the mysteries of faith, and the intrinsic reasons of the truths of divine revelation. Such a movement will open the door for the return of the Saxon races. The Latin-Celts in relation to the development of the hierarchy, discipline, worship, and aesthetics of the Church are considered. Causes of Protestantism—antagonism and jealousy of races; present persecutions. The Saxon idea of the Catholic Church. Reason for it—they see only the outward and human side of the Church. Return of the Saxons in consequence of the new phase of development—the display of the inward and the divine to their intelligence. The transition of races; in the future the Saxon will supernaturalize the natural, the Latin-Celts will naturalize the supernatural. The plan and suggestions given are the way to escape the extermination of Christianity by the Saxons, and the denial of Christianity by the apostasy of the Latins. The union of these races in the Church, with their civilization and force, is the means of spreading Christianity rapidly over the whole world.

"In the Exposition I follow simply the footsteps of the Church as indicated in her history, in the Encyclicals of Pius IX., and the Vatican Council. The Church is God acting directly on the human race, guiding it to its true destiny, the road of all true progress."

The Exposition, as already said, had been talked to all comers by Father Hecker, and in various parts of Europe, but was put into shape in the autumn of 1874, while he was in the north of Italy. He took it to Rome and offered it to the Propaganda Press. No fault was found with it; many high dignitaries, some of them members of the Congregation of the Sacred Palace, which has charge of the censorship, heartily approved of it and would have it published at once; but at the last moment this was decided by the authorities to be inexpedient. It was then sent to London, and Pickering brought it out anonymously, and it was at once put into French by Mrs. Craven. It was published as a leader in The Catholic World about the same time, and in 1887 formed the first chapter of The Church and the Age, a compilation of Father Hecker's more important later essays.

The Exposition contributes to the solution of the race problem as it affects religion. A glance at Europe shows the radical difference which is symbolized by the terms Transalpine and Cisalpine, Latin and Teutonic. The one group of races most readily clings to the interior virtues of religion, the other to external institutions. The problem is how to reconcile them, how to bring both into unity. Father Hecker believed that the Latin race had crowned its work in the Vatican Council and done it gloriously, and that the time had arrived to invite the Teutonic race to develop its force in the interior life of the Church. There are passages in the following letter which indicate the weight of this racial problem to him, as well as the supernatural earnestness which he brought to the study of it. It serves to explain a remark he once made: "I wrote the Exposition while I was having very many lights about the Holy Ghost—I couldn't help but write it."

"PARIS, June 11, 1874.

"DEAR GEORGE AND JOSEPHINE: There is not much for me to add to my letter of the third of this month. My preparations are made to go to Mayence during the Catholic Assembly, which commences on the fifteenth and lasts three days. There I shall meet several persons whom I am interested in and wish to see. Besides, ecclesiastical affairs in the German Empire are in a very critical state, and this must add to the interest of the Assembly. Meeting, as I frequently do, the leading minds of Europe, enables me to compare views, appreciate difficulties, and hear objections.

"It is just as difficult to get the Celtic [and Latin] mind to conceive and appreciate the internal notes of the Church, and the character of her divine interior life, as it is to get the Teutonic mind to conceive and appreciate the divine external constitution of the Church, the importance, and essential importance, of her authority, discipline, and liturgy. But the weakness of the former, and the persecutions now permitted by Divine Providence to be visited on the latter, are teaching them both the lessons they need to learn. To complete the development of the truth, of the Church, each needs the other; and Divine Providence is shaping things so that in spite of all obstacles, natural and induced, a synthesis of them both is forming in the bosom of the Church. The work is slow but certain, concealed from ordinary observation because divine; but exceedingly beautiful. Underneath all the persecutions, the oppression, the false action, the whole outwardly critical condition of the Church and society, there is an overpowering, counteracting, divine current, leading to an all-embracing, most complete, and triumphant unity in the Church. To see how all things—wicked men as well as the good, for God reigns over all—contribute to this end and are made to serve it, gives peace to the mind, repose to the soul, and excites admiration and adoration of the Divine action in the world.

"To have a conception of this all-embracing and direct action of God in the affairs of this world, and by the light of faith to see that the Church is the dwelling place of His holiness, majesty, mercy, and power, and is the medium of this action, at first stupefies, overwhelms, and, as it were, reduces the soul to nothing. By degrees and imperceptibly it is raised from its nothingness; timidly the soul opens its eyes and ventures to cast a glance, and then to contemplate the Divinity which everywhere surrounds it, as air and light do our bodies. The contemplation of the Divine action becomes its only occupation and it is an irresistible one. All the life, mind, and strength of the soul is involuntarily absorbed in this direction, leaving the body scarcely sufficient strength to continue its ordinary functions.

"How far will the body regain its former strength? What will be the relation of the soul with its former occupations? Will this additional light require other conditions? Was this light given for another and wider field of labor? These and many other questions must arise in the soul, which in due season will be answered. Its present duty is to practise conformity to God's will, patience, detachment, discretion, and confidence."

There is hardly any part of this Life which does not assist one in understanding the Exposition, especially the chapters on the idea of a religious community and that giving his spiritual doctrine. Many leading spirits hailed it with joy, among them Margotti, the editor of the Unita Cattolica of Turin, and Cardinal Deschamps. The former made Father Hecker's acquaintance during a visit to Turin, and became a warm admirer of him and his views. He compelled him to leave the hotel and lodge at his house during his stay in that city. When the Exposition came out he gave it two long and highly commendatory notices in his journal, at the time the most influential Catholic one in Italy, and published three chapters entire.

We have a copy of the Exposition annotated, at Father Hecker's request, by the late distinguished Jesuit, Father H. Ramiere. These comments are valuable and suggestive. While modifying Father Hecker's judgment as to the causes of the deterioration of Catholic manliness, Father Ramiere recognizes the fact. The remedies receive his emphatic approval, as also the author's explanation of the synthesis of the inner and outer action of the Holy Ghost in the Church.

When The Church and the Age appeared the English Jesuit magazine, The Month, in its issue of July, 1888, gave the book a very full and favorable review, endorsing all the principles of the Exposition. After saying that the Vatican decrees mark a special epoch in the evolution of Christianity, and close a period of attack—one of the sharpest which the Church has ever sustained—upon her external authority, the reviewer continues:

"It completed the Church's defence, and left her free to continue unimpeded her normal course of internal development. . . . The author displays remarkable breadth of thought, and the book contains many passages which are not only eloquent as a defence of Catholicity, but which cannot fail to impart instruction to the reflecting reader. We think it deserving of a wide circulation among both clergy and laity, and it is with a desire to further such a result that we propose to explain at some length the views which we have already touched upon. . . . We want a Catholic individualism, which necessarily requires a clear and recognized authority as a safeguard against the errors to which individualism exposes itself, but which, on the other hand, can never be begotten by the mere principle of authority as such."

The Literarischer Handweiser, a German Catholic critical review, published in Muenster, having a high character and wide circulation, gave an equally favorable estimate of Father Hecker's views in a notice of The Church and the Age.

The following extracts from letters will close our consideration of the Exposition, which we have thought worthy of so careful and full a study because it is the remedial application of Father Hecker's spiritual doctrines to the evils of European Catholicity:

"It is consoling to see men of different opinions and of opposite parties in the Church regarding my pamphlet as the programme of a common ground on which they can meet and agree.

"I have had several interviews with Cardinal Deschamps. He invited me to spend the evenings with him, as we are old and very close friends. On all points, main points, our views are one. And it is singular how the same precise ideas and views have presented themselves at the same time to the minds of us both. In matters which regard my personal direction, I have consulted him several times, and fully. He has always taken a special interest in my welfare in every sense. His counsel has given me great relief, increased tranquillity, and will be of great service. He remains here eight or ten days longer, and I will see him as often during that period as I can."

A distinguished Swiss orator and prelate, since made cardinal, told Father Hecker of a devout priest who gave a large number of retreats to the clergy: "'When I saw him last,' said Monsignor to me, 'he said that since we had met he had given retreats to seven hundred or eight hundred priests, and that he had read to them the Exposition of the Church which I gave him at my last interview with him.'"

"It will take time to understand the ideas in the Exposition. It will take still longer time to see their bearing, application, and results. Few at first will seize their import; by degrees they will take in a wider circle. The difficulties of the times, the anguish of many souls in the midst of the present persecutions, etc., will draw attention to any project or plan or system that offers a better future."





CHAPTER XXXIV

IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH

"I LOOK back," wrote Father Hecker in the summer of 1879, "on these three years as one continuous and dreadful interior struggle." This shows that the shadows were too deep and broad for the intervals of peace, which we know from his letters he had now and then enjoyed, to banish the impression of constant gloom. And Father Hecker's readiness to return home upon positive request will be the better appreciated when we remember how very painful to him was the very thought of his past occupations. Nor was his bodily health in a hopeful condition. While at Ragatz in the month of June, 1875, he met a distinguished physician from Paris, an excellent Catholic, whom he had been strongly advised to consult before. Glad of the chance, he submitted to a thorough examination, and received from him a written statement to the effect that it would be dangerous to take up any steady occupation, and that he should be entirely free from care for at least a year; otherwise a final break-down was to be expected. This seemed effectually to bar all thoughts of return. And such was his own settled conviction, as is shown by the following, written about the end of June:

"Where could I find repose? Not in the community; not at my brother's: nowhere else to go. Then, again, I would be constantly required to give opinions and counsel in the affairs of the community, which would require an application beyond my strength. There is no other way than for me to remain contented in Europe, with my feebleness and obscurity, in the hands of God."

But on July 29 he received a letter which compelled him to decide between tranquillity of spirit and bodily comfort—perhaps life itself—on the one hand, and the call of his brethren on the other. He decided without a moment's hesitation and with the utmost equanimity. We quote from a letter to George Hecker:

"Three days ago a letter from Father Hewit reached me urging my immediate return in such strong language and with such considerations that I wrote a reply expressing my readiness to return at once. On re-reading the letter I found its tone so urgent that I sent a telegram to the above effect. . . . In God's hands are my being, my soul, and all my faculties, to do with them and direct them as He pleases. To return to the United States and there arrange things to His pleasure, or to leave me here. I am indifferent, quiet, entirely ready either not to act or to act."

And so in October, 1875, Father Hecker was again in New York. He begged the Fathers to allow him to stay with his brother for the present, "for my nerves could not stand the noise, the routine, and the excitement of the house in Fifty-ninth Street." And when he did return to the convent to live, which was four years afterwards, he was quite sure that his end was at hand, though it did not come till nine years later.

During all the thirteen years between Father Hecker's return to America and his death, his daily order of life was pretty much the same as he described it in one of his letters from Europe, already given to the reader. He did not resort any longer to change of place or climate as a means of recovery; he had tried that long enough. His physician, the one who served the community, assisted him constantly with advice and remedies, and once or twice he tried a sanitarium; he was apt to try anything suggested, being credulous about such matters. But his strength of body slowly faded away. He was more disturbed than surprised at this, and fought for life every inch of the way.

"If I were a Celt," he once said with a smile, "I should more readily resign myself to die, but I am of a race that clings fast to the earth." His persistent struggle was sometimes calm, but was generally sharpened by a horrible dread of death, which fastened on his soul like a vampire, and gave a stern aspect to his self-defence. His patience in suffering was most admirable, though seldom clothed in the usual formalities. "Perhaps, after all," he would sometimes say, "God will give me back my health, for I have a work to do."

Though anything but an ill-tempered man, Father Hecker was yet by nature ardent and irascible and quickly provoked by opposition, but God gave him such a horror of dissension that he would not quarrel, though it was often plain that his peaceful words cost him a hard struggle. Occasionally he lost his temper for a little while, and this was when compelled to attend to business under stress of great bodily or mental pain. We do not think that he was ever known to attempt to move men by anger, or even sternness. "If you ever tell any one about me," he said, "say that I believed in praising men more than in condemning them, and that I valued praise as a higher form of influence than any kind of threatening or compulsion." Nor did he resort to the formalities of obedience to secure his end. "Why don't you put me under obedience to do this?" asked a father who did not exactly approve of a proposal Father Hecker had made to him. The answer was given with a good deal of heat: "I have never done such a thing in my life, and I am not going to begin now!" Nor had he any use for bitter speech even in cold blood. "One thing," he said in a letter, "I will now correct; a sneer—intentionally or consciously— is a thing that, so far as my memory serves, I am as innocent of as a little babe." Yet he could be sarcastic, as the following memorandum shows: "Cardinal Cullen once said to me, after I had made a journey through Ireland, 'Well, Father Hecker, what do you think of Ireland?' I answered: 'Your Eminence, my thoughts about Ireland are such that I will get out of the country as soon as I can; for if I expressed my sentiments I should soon be put into jail for Fenianism!'" This was in 1867 while Fenianism was rampant. Of course he did not approve of it, but the sights he saw taught him its awful provocation. And once when unduly pressed with the dictum of an author whose range of power was not high enough to overcome Father Hecker's objections, he said: "I am not content to live to be the echo of dead men's thoughts." But it was not by skill in the thrust and parry of argumentative fence that Father Hecker won his way in a discussion, but by the hard drive of a great principle. The following memorandum describes the effect of this on an ordinary man:

"It is rather amusing when Father Hecker asks me some of his stunning questions on the deepest topics of the divine sciences. I look blank at him, I ask him to explain, I fish up some stale commonplace from the memory of my studies—and he then gives me his own original, his luminous answer."

And both his choice of subjects in conversation and his natural manner were according to his temperament, which was meditative. This gave his countenance when at rest a peaceful cast until within a few years of the end, when "death's pale flag" cast upon it a shade of foreboding. We have a photograph of him taken when he was about forty-five and in average good health, showing a tranquil face, full of thought and with eyes cast down; to the writer's mind it is the typical Isaac Hecker. But this expression changed in conversation, when not only his words but his gestures and his glances challenged a friendly but energetic conflict of opinion.

If it be asked, how did Father Hecker recreate himself during those mournful years, the answer is that recreation in the sense of a pleasurable relaxation seemed contrary to his nature whether in sickness or in health. It was once said to him, "Easter week is always a lazy time." "No, it is not," he answered. "I never have known a time, not a moment, in my whole life, when I felt lazy or was in an idle mood." He found himself obliged, however, to get out of the house and take exercise, walking in the park leaning on the arm of one of the community, or, if he was more than usually weak, being driven in his brother's carriage. There were occasions when to kill time was for him to kill care—to call his mind away from thoughts of death and of the judgment, the dread of which fell upon him like eternal doom. Then he would try to get some one to talk to, or to go with him and look at pictures and statues; or he would work at mending old clocks, a pretty well mended collection of which he kept in his room against such occasions. In the park he would often go and look at the beasts in the menagerie, and he spoke of them affectionately. "They bring to my mind the power and beauty of God," he said. He came to meals with the community, at least to dinner, until five or six years before his death, when his appetite became so unreliable that he took what food he could, and when he could, in his room. He also attended the community recreations after meals until a few years before the end; but it was often noticed that the process of humiliation he was undergoing caused him to creep away into a corner, sit awhile with a very dejected look, and then wearily go upstairs to his room. When he was urged not to do this, "I cannot help it to save my life," was all the answer he could give. He finally gave up the recreations almost entirely.

But he hated laziness. "I am so weak," he once said, "and my brain is so easily tired out that I am forced to read a great deal to recreate myself. That's why you see me reading so much." The book in which he was at the moment seeking recreation was a ponderous work on metaphysics by a prolix Scotchman, treating in many dreary chapters of such amusing topics as the unity of the act of perception with the object perceived! As may be supposed of such a man, whose illness forbade action and whose interior trials made contemplation an agony, he chafed sometimes at his enforced inactivity, though he was never heard, as far as we can get evidence, openly to complain of it.

Time and stagnation of bodily forces did not alter his progressive ideas.

"Is it not wiser," he said, "to give one's thought and energy to prepare the way for the future success and triumph of religion than to labor to continue the present [state of things], which must be and is being supplanted? Such an attitude may not be understood and may be misinterpreted, and be one of trial and suffering; still it is the only one which, consistently with a sense of duty, can be taken and maintained."

A bishop on his way to Rome once called on Father Hecker. "Tell the Holy Father," he said to him, "that there are three things which will greatly advance religion: First, to place the whole Church in a missionary attitude—make the Propaganda the right arm of the Church. Second, choose the cardinals from the Catholics of all nations, so that they shall be a senate representing all Christendom. Third, make full use of modern appliances and methods for transacting the business of the Holy See." Sometimes he discussed the activity of modern commerce as teaching religious men a lesson. He once said:

"When Father Hecker is dead one thing may be laid to his credit: that he always protested that it is a shame and an outrage that men of the world do more for money than religious men will do for the service of God."

No glutton ever devoured a feast more eagerly than Father Hecker read a sermon, a lecture, or an editorial showing the trend of non-Catholic thought. After his death his desk was found littered with innumerable clippings of the sort, many of them pencilled with underlinings and with notes. These furnished much of the matter of his conversation, and doubtless of his prayers. Once he wrote to a friend:

"Nobody is necessary to God and to the accomplishment of his designs. Yet at times I wish that I had the virtue that some creatures have; when cut into pieces each piece becomes a new complete individual of the same species. I should cut myself into at least a dozen pieces to meet the demands made upon me. What a splendid thing it is to think of our Lord going about doing wonders, eternal and infinite things, and all the time seeming to be unoccupied. The truly simple soul reduces all occupations to one, and in that one accomplishes all."

And his organizing faculty would busy itself in various schemes, which, if they could not cure his weak body, could relax with a fancied activity his tired soul. Thus in a letter he said:

"Why should we not form a league for the cause of our Lord, to whom we owe all? Unreserved devotion to His cause with patience, perseverance, humility, and sweetness, are weapons that no man or woman or thing can withstand. Our Lord has promised that if we believe in Him we shall do greater works than He did. Let us believe in Him, and clothe ourselves through faith in Him with His virtues, and who shall resist us?

"The first of all successes is Christ's triumph in our souls. Everything that leads to this, humiliations, afflictions, calumnies, contempt, mortifications, all work for us a glory exceeding the imagination of man. To suffer for Christ's sake is the short-cut in the way of becoming Christ-like."

The following anecdote of his missionary days shows Father Hecker's contempt for lazy devotion. Once, when upon a mission, a young priest just returned home from Rome, where he had made his studies, expressed his desire to get back again to Italy as soon as possible, saying, "I find no time here to pray." Father Hecker felt indignant, for it did not seem to him that the young man was very much occupied. "Don't be such a baby," said he. "Look around and see how much work there is to be done here. Is it not better to make some return to God—here in your own country—for what He has done for you, rather than to be sucking your thumbs abroad? What kind of piety do you call that?"

He took a personal interest in all the members of the community, and this was greatly heightened if any one fell sick. We remember his excitement when it was announced that one of the Fathers, who had been sent to a hospital for a surgical operation, had grown worse and was in danger of death. He began to pace his room, to question sharply about doctors and nurses, and immediately ordered Masses to be said and special prayers by the community; and this father he had seen very little of and hardly knew from the others. "I cannot tell," he wrote to a friend at the time of Father Tillotson's illness, "I dare not express, how much I love him, what he is to me." Always tender-hearted, the nearer he came to the end and the more he suffered the more gentle were his feelings towards all, the more kindly grew his looks, but also the more sad and weary. He was always careful to express thanks for favors, small or great. The following is from a letter to a friend:

"Your last note contained at the end a kind invitation. Don't be troubled; I'm not coming! Do you know that sometimes I am tempted to think that I am necessary? Sometimes the thought has come to me that I might run away from home a week or so. Then I have driven the thought away as I would a temptation. But I wished to thank you none the less for your invitation, though I should never see you again. I have an uncontrollable horror of ingratitude."

During his long years of illness Father Hecker's reading continued upon the lines he had ever followed, the Scriptures holding, of course, the first place. Besides reading or having read to him certain parts adapted to the spiritual probation he was undergoing, such as Job, the Passion of our Lord, and chapters of the sapiential books, he also took the entire Scriptures in course, going slowly through them from cover to cover and insisting on every word being read, genealogies and all. He would sometimes interrupt the reader to make comments and ask questions. The last words that he listened to at night were the words of Scripture, read to him after he had got into bed. He declared that they soothed him and settled his mind and calmed its disturbance, and this was easily seen by his looks and manner. Some who knew him well thought from his comments that God gave him infused knowledge of a rare order about the sense of Scripture. Once he said:

"When you were reading Ezechiel last night, oh, you cannot understand what thoughts I had! During the past six months I have learned how to understand him. I say within myself: 'O Ezechiel! Ezechiel! no one understands, no one understands you in this world, except one here and there.'"

Next to Scripture came St. Thomas and St. John of the Cross, the one for dogmatic and philosophical, the other for devotional uses. It must have been soon after returning to America as a Redemptorist that he procured a copy of Alagona's Compendium of St. Thomas, submitted it to Bishop Neumann, whose learning was in high repute, and obtained his assurance of its accuracy. That little book is a curiosity of underlining and various other forms of emphasizing. It was with him till death. From it he referred to the full works of St. Thomas for complete statements, but he loved to ponder the brief summary of the abridgment and work the principles out in his own way. St. John of the Cross and Lallemant, as already stated, were his hand-books of mysticism and ascetic principles. The former he caused to be read to him in regular course over and over again, enjoying every syllable with fresh relish. In later days the Life of Mary Ward, by Mary Catherine Chambers, and The Glories of Divine Grace, by Scheeben, afforded him special pleasure. Books which told of the religious tendencies of minds outside the Church were sure to interest him. He studied them as Columbus inspected the drifting weeds and the wild birds encountered on his voyage of discovery. Those who served him as readers sometimes found this kind of literature pretty dry, just as Columbus's crew doubtless found it idle work to fish up the floating weeds of the sea. The following sentences occur in a diary written while in Europe in 1875. It is a statement of his opinion of the objective points at which Catholic teachers and writers of our day should aim:

"In dogmatic theology, when treating of the doctrine of the fall of man keep in view the value of human nature and the necessity of divine grace preceding every act of Christian life.

"In moral theology, stimulate the sense of personal responsibility.

"In ascetic theology, fidelity to the Holy Spirit.

"In polemic theology, develop the intrinsic notes of the Church."

As to novels, he fully appreciated their power over minds, but we believe that he did not read half a dozen in his whole life, and these he treated as he did graver works: he studied them. "To read is one thing, to study is another," says Cardinal Manning; but all reading was study to Father Hecker. We remember one novel which he read, slowly and most carefully, underlining much of it and filling the margins of every page with notes. "Why don't you read novels, as other people do?" he was asked. "Because life is more novel than any fiction, for fiction is but an attempt to paint life," he answered. No printed matter of any kind, much less a book, ever could be a plaything to Isaac Hecker. He often made more of the sentences on a scrap of newspaper, and studied them far harder, than the writer of them himself had done. A man whose play and work are in such problems as, how God is known, how the Trinity subsists, what beatitude is, how God's being is mirrored in man's activity, has too real a life within him and about him to tarry long in fiction or in any of the by-roads of literature. Poetry, however, in its higher forms, or with a strong ethical tendency, he was very fond of. Perhaps his favorite among the poets was Coventry Patmore.

After returning to New York Father Hecker, besides supervising the editorial work of The Catholic World, wrote an occasional article for its pages. The more important of these, twelve in number, with the Exposition as a leader, were published in a volume already mentioned, The Church and the Age. This book appeared in 1887, and contains his views of the religious problems in Europe and America, and also some controversial writings against orthodox Protestantism and Unitarianism. These are well-written, clean-cut, and aggressive pieces of polemical writing, whether against the errors of Protestants or of infidels. The Church and the Age is the best exhibit of the author's opinions and principles on topics of religious interest and those of race and epoch having a religious bearing. He has left a considerable amount of unpublished matter, notably some essays on how God is known, the reality of ideas, and the Trinity, together with much on spiritual subjects. Let us hope that these and more of his unpublished writings will some day be given to the public. He always found difficulty in preparing matter for the press. Using a pencil and a rubber eraser, he often positively wore the paper through with writing, correcting, and writing again. He seemed scrupulous about such matters, and in these circumstances he lacked the immediate expression of his thoughts which came to him so spontaneously in his letters and diaries, as well as in his public speaking. But he dictated readily, and with a result of reaching quickly the form of words he would finally be content with. By this means he prepared his articles on Doctor Brownson, which appeared in The Catholic World between April and November, 1887.

His intercourse with the members of the community was naturally much interfered with by his illness. But he loved to listen to them speaking of their work, was greatly interested in the building and decorating of the new church, and when the missionaries came home was eager to hear them tell of their success. He would invariably suggest that we should study how to extend our preaching outside the regular missions, so as to take in non-Catholics. He was also alive to opportunities for stimulating others, in and out of the community, to do literary work. At Lake George, where he spent his summers with the community, he was able to have a familiar contact with us all, especially the students, whom he enlisted in working about the grounds or the house, helping as best he could. But after his illness began he ever showed a certain constraint of manner when the conversation took a grave turn, a kind of shyness, which a judge of character might interpret as meaning, "I am afraid you'll misunderstand me; I am afraid you'll think I am a visionary."





CHAPTER XXXV

CONCLUSION

FATHER HECKER'S prayer during all these years was a state of what seemed almost uninterrupted contemplation of varied intensity. He attended the evening meditation of the community as long as he had strength to do so, frequently giving a commentary on the points read out at the beginning, simple, direct, and fervent. He was exceedingly fond of assisting at High Mass on Sundays and feast days, and he had a small oratory built between the house and the new church, from which, by passing a few steps from his room, he could hear the music and see the function through a window opening into the sanctuary. This often overpowered him with emotion, which was sometimes so strong as to drive him back to his room and into bed. Once a week and on the more solemn festivals was as often as he could say Mass, or even hear it, on account of his extreme weakness in the mornings. For the last three or four years of his life to say Mass at all became a struggle which was as curious as it was distressing to witness. Those who had often read of such things in the lives of the servants of God were nevertheless amazed at the sight of them in Father Hecker. The following is from a memorandum:

"Father Hecker: Do you know what it is to be in spontaneous relations with God—where the Divine Object works upon the soul spontaneously? It is that which prevents me from saying Mass, because I make a fool of myself. At any point I am apt to be so influenced by God as to be utterly deprived of physical force, to sink down helpless. At my brother's house they expect it and get me a chair. A few moments on a chair, and I am ready to go on. Now, if I yield to this I know that I shall be thrown into a clean helpless state, and I have a practical work to do. Question: Does this effect come at receiving Communion? Answer: I don't know, as I have never yet received Communion out of Mass. But I am afraid of it. Any such thing is apt to throw me off, and I am afraid. Question: But suppose it to be God's will that you should say Mass notwithstanding this difficulty? Answer: Then let Him bring it about."

At one time several months passed, months of very low vitality in body and awful darkness of soul, during which he neither said Mass nor received Communion. The following memorandum describes how this period, perhaps the most painful of his life, was ended:

"Christmas, 1885.—For the first time since early summer Father Hecker undertook to say Mass: I assisted him, and a stormy time we had of it. It was at five in the morning and in the oratory. He wanted to have the door locked, but there was no key. 'Don't speak a word to me,' he said while he was dressing in his room. Arrived in the oratory, he sank down upon a bench as if some one had struck him; he threw his birettum down on the floor, and began to weep and cry in a very mournful way and aloud. But he quickly recovered, and rested as if he were preparing to be hanged. I supported him over to the altar, and as he began the Judica he blubbered out the words like a school-boy being whipped. Most of the Mass he said out loud, hardly holding in his sobs anywhere except from the hanc igitur till near the Pater Noster. His calmest time was during that most solemn part, and at his Communion. Three or four times he was forced to sit down on a chair I had provided for him on the predella. At the Memento for the living he was deeply affected and patted the floor with his foot, sobbing aloud and acting like a child with an unendurable toothache. He was afraid of the Pater Noster and asked me to say it with him, which I did; also various words and sentences in other parts of the Mass. I have heard him say that the Pater Noster is a prayer which breaks him down. After he was through he insisted on trying to say the Pope's prayers. We said the Hail Marys and the Hail, Holy Queen, together, and I recited the prayer for him. I had to take off his vestments the best I could while he sat, and when I got him down to his room and into bed, he was in a state of nearly complete unconsciousness. After saying my three Masses, I saw him again at about 8.30, found him up and dressed and very bright, and he has been particularly so all day."

What follows is from a letter dated early in 1886, and seems to refer to the occasion above described. He speaks of himself in the third person:

"And he [Father Hecker] was never so occupied as now, although he is doing nothing and has been in that condition for months. Though he does hear Mass, he does not, because he cannot, say it—without showing what a big fool he is. However he has begun again to say it. If it had not been for human respect he would not have said it last Sunday; he was too feeble. God is killing him by slow fire, by inches. He dies terribly hard."

If Father Hecker had had an unimpaired physical system when his interior trials came, he might have resisted the nervous depression which they caused, at least well enough to maintain an active part in his undertakings. Or if his bodily weakness, resulting from his early austerities, had been accompanied with interior equanimity, he might have held up. A rickety ship can, with care and skill, get into port if the engine is sound, and so can a sound ship with a broken-down engine sail home, however slowly. But with both a rickety ship and a disabled engine the port should be near at hand or there is danger of shipwreck. That Father Hecker did not die long before he did, was due, apart from God's special designs, to the extraordinary skill and care of Doctor James Begen, who was also an attached friend. Mr. Anthony Ellis, one of his former penitents, served him in his sick-room out of pure love from 1879 until his death, which preceded Father Hecker's by about a year. He had a kind-hearted successor in Mr. Patrick McCann.

Father Hecker's beloved brother George died on February 14, 1888. He had been ailing for some time and Father Hecker went to see him frequently. . . . "George and I," he once said, "were united in a way no words can describe. Our union was something extremely spiritual and divine." The following memorandum tells how Father Hecker received the news:

"George Hecker died about nine o'clock last night, and when I informed Father Hecker of it this morning he was deeply moved. 'Don't say a word to me!' he cried, 'not a word. Read something! Read something quick!' I stepped over to the table and took the Scriptures and began to read the thirteenth chapter of St. John, read it through, and another chapter. By that time he calmed down. He only wept twice, except a few little sobs, and went out riding as usual this afternoon. He is profoundly moved. 'I knew it,' he said this morning; 'I saw it, I saw it last night—it seemed to me that I saw it. I came near coming to your room at half-past ten, but concluded not to do so.' Another time to-day he said: 'If God enables me to bear this I hope I shall be able to do my allotted work.'"

He bore it well, but it added very much to a burden already too heavy. For some weeks afterwards he now and then moaned and wept for his brother, and this happened occasionally till summer came. Those who attended Father Hecker could not but be convinced, from what they saw and heard, that God allowed George to visit his brother more than once after his death, and these supernatural interviews were productive of mingled consolation of soul and pain of body to the survivor. George Hecker was worthy of his brother's love. He was a noble character, full of that sort of religion nowadays most needed. His piety flourished in the withering atmosphere of wealth and in the turmoil of commercial life. Industry, thrift, enterprise, quick perception of opportunities, determination, a keen sense of his rights and a bold hand to defend them, manly frankness, were conspicuous traits in him and made him a rich merchant. But all these qualities served him as well for high spiritual ends. He was essentially and dominantly a spiritual man, fond of prayer, regular in all religious duties. He was as honest as the day, and all for conscience' sake and the love of God. His understanding was wide and clear, his heart tender, simple, and courageous. He loved his wife and children, he loved his brother Isaac, with an absorbing devotedness, and these loves were blended and mingled into one with the love of God. His charities are known to the reader, but they should be understood as the result not merely of affection for his brother, or even of faith in his apostolate, but also from his own perception of the intrinsic worth of the undertakings themselves. We know not what quality could be added to George Hecker to make him a model Christian of our day.

His death had a serious effect on Father Hecker's state of body and mind. But from the previous autumn and during the winter following he had failed rapidly. In fact, he had requested and received the last Sacraments from Father Hewit on September 15, 1887; but this was on account of an alarming irregularity of the heart's action, which was but temporary. He had no long distance to drop at any time to get to the bottom, and it became evident in the summer of 1888 that the end was not far off. He could not stand the strong air of Lake George that summer, and came home after being there but a couple of weeks. He tried the sea-side with even worse success; and the short journeys he made were extremely painful. The paroxysms of angina pectoris became more frequent and daily left their victim less able to rally. Patience strained to the uttermost by physical suffering, the mind distressed, fits of despondency and of indescribable gloom, the weight of a body of death—all this he had borne for sixteen years, with only occasional intervals of peace. There was little left to suffer except death. His bodily resistance grew weaker towards the end of his last summer on earth, and he lost flesh rapidly. The fulness of his face was gone by autumn, and a wan look, as of decaying force, was stamped upon it. He suffered in literally every member of his body, by turns or simultaneously. We find the following memorandum:

"Question: What's the matter with the back of your head? [he was rubbing it with extract of witch hazel]. Answer: It is sore, it hurts me. Q. Well! As soon as one part is better another gets out of order? etc. A. Do you know it was all revealed to me and foretold [beginning to weep]. Q. When? In your novitiate? A. Yes. Q. But not all the details of your sufferings? A. Yes, all the details. But I will not say another word about it. Q. But you ought to, etc. [He refused to say more.]"

Little by little during the latter years Father Hecker's visitors had become very few. An occasional call was received from an old friend, lay or cleric, and this was not apt to be repeated, so painful was the contrast between the former Father Hecker and the present one. Instead of the active and powerful man, of contagious courage and hopefulness, they saw a tall, wan old man bending with the weight of years and of suffering, but still majestic in his look and bearing, with a white beard, and soft, attractive eyes. The quick movement, the joyous greeting, even the smiling serenity, had passed away, and instead an air of sadness had come, or of enforced cheerfulness.

The following memorandum, taken over two years before his death, tells of a relief which he hoped would be permanent; but such was not to be the case:

"Father Hecker said to-day: 'Only within the last three days has God released me from the sensation that I might die any instant. Oh! how I have suffered from that feeling for ten years. I did not know whether I should ever be delivered from it. Now, little by little God is lifting it off from my soul. For ten years I have been under this cloud. Oh, how terrible a suffering it has been!' This he said, his hands covering his face; he had interrupted me to say it while I was reading St. John of the Cross. 'Oh!' he added, 'how I could weep for my sins,' and so on for a few more words."

The clouds soon settled down again. The following was noted a little over a month after the above:

"Father Hecker said to me to-day: 'There was a time when I seemed to know God so clearly and to be so conscious of His attraction that my whole thought and wish was death; to break the chain of life to be united to God in Paradise. Now it is altogether different; nothing but darkness and depression.'"

Here is another memorandum, taken some time before the above:

"Father Hecker said: 'God is now visiting me with the profoundest desolation of spirit. I have the most deadly terror of death; if I yielded to it I should tremble from head to foot. Yet there is a spell on me which makes me wish that I may die without sensible faith and deprived of every present spiritual comfort. . . .' He also said many things about his continued and unbroken desolation of spirit these several years back. 'Yet,' said he, 'I never knew that God would permit me to come so near to Him and see so much of Him as I have.' Then he made me read to him the first chapter of the Book of Job. . . . After he had gone to bed I read to him part of an article in The Month on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and he discoursed meantime to me most profoundly on that topic. And he added: 'One reason why I have always been so much interested in the doctrine of the Holy Ghost acting in the soul is a practical one, because I myself have never had any other director, though I have more than once opened my mind entirely to others and profited by their advice, but none was or could be really my director. Hence, too, I am so much attracted to saints who have had to struggle on alone like St. Catherine of Genoa, who was without a director for twenty-five years.'"