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Father Hecker's legal case not being decided, he was advised by Cardinal Barnabo to reserve his signature to this document for the present. It will be seen at a glance that the dispensation from the vows and an entirely new departure in community existence was more in accordance with his aspirations.
From what has been said of Father Hecker's aptitude to win non-Catholics to hear and believe him, it should not be thought that in order to do so he was obliged to leave off any sign of his priestly character. He was distinctly priestly in his demeanor, though, as already observed, not exactly what one would call a thorough "ecclesiastic." He ever dressed soberly.
John's, N.B." From what has been so far communicated to the reader, it will be seen that Father Hecker's case had the strength of friendship to assist it. But he was himself his best advocate. His traits of character were lovable, and the very incongruity of such a man forced to plead against the direst penalty known to a religious, was a singularly strong argument.
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.
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.
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.
Up to that time there had been but two priests added to the community, and those who had offered themselves as novices and been rejected were, as a rule, little calculated to inspire hope. But from 1865 onwards good subjects, mostly converts, applied in sufficient numbers, and in a few years the missions were resumed. To this, and to Father Hecker's lectures, we now turn.
On the one hand, the influence of Isaac Hecker's Brook Farm surroundings was to persuade him to confide wholly in nature, which there was very nearly at its unaided best. On the other hand, the treasures of Catholicity for the inner life were hidden from him. Religion, in his conception of it in the true conception of it must be the binding of all things together, natural and supernatural.
He seems to have been ascetic by nature a Stoic, not an Epicurean, by the very make-up of his personality. The reader will see this more clearly as we pass on to the succeeding phases of Father Hecker's interior life.
"Pius IX.," said Father Hecker afterwards, "was a man of the largest head, of still larger heart, moved more by his impulses than by his judgment; but his impulses were great, noble, all-embracing." It will not be out of place here to look more closely into Father Hecker's conscience and study his motives.
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