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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.
And, indeed, he was full of courage and conscience in the future, all his letters breathing a cheerful spirit. Before giving Father Hecker's principles for community life, which we will do in the next chapter, it may be well to say a few words more about the attitude in which he and his companions had been placed, by the action of the Holy See, toward the Catholic idea of authority.
And again: "There was nothing ascetic or severe in him; but I have often thought since that his feeling was probably what he might have afterward described as a consciousness that he must be about his Father's business." These words are significant testimony to the nobility of the impression made on others by Father Hecker's personality in early manhood.
Here are some of Father Hecker's words, printed but a year or two before his death, which treat not only of the interior life in general, but in particular of its relation to the outer action of God on the soul through the divine organism of the Church: "St. Thomas Aquinas attributes the absence of spiritual joy mainly to neglect of consciousness of the inner life.
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." FATHER HECKER'S prayer during all these years was a state of what seemed almost uninterrupted contemplation of varied intensity.
Some, like Barnabo, were actuated by the quick sympathy of free natures; others, like Pius IX., arrived at a decision by the slower processes of the removal of prejudice from an honest mind, and the careful comparing of Father Hecker's principles with the fundamental truths of religion.
Before passing to the study of Isaac Hecker's own interior during the period of his residence at Brook Farm, it is our pleasant privilege to communicate to our readers the subjoined charming reminiscence of his personality at the time, from one who was his associate there: "West New Brighton, S.I., February 28, 1890.
It is impossible to say just when Isaac Hecker's appreciation of this truth became intensely personal and clear, but it is easy to make a tolerable approximation to the time. He went to Brook Farm in January, 1843, rather more than eight years after his first meeting with Dr. Brownson. It was by the advice of the latter that he made this first decisive break from his former life.
But on the eve of the election half of their candidates sold out to one of the opposing parties. What other results this treachery may have had is a question which, fortunately, does not concern us, but it dispelled one of the strongest of Isaac Hecker's youthful illusions.
Anglicanism, too uncleansed, as it notoriously is, of a Calvinistic taint, broken up by absolute license of dissent, maintaining a mere outward conformity to an extremely lax discipline affronted Isaac Hecker's ideal of the communion of man and God; man seeking and God giving the one only revelation of divine truth, unifying and organizing the Christian community: and this in spite of an attraction for the beauty of the Episcopal service which he often confesses in his diary.
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