"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 theLife of Mary Ward,by Mary Catherine Chambers, andThe 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 ofThe 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 Ageis 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 inThe Catholic Worldbetween 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."
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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 theJudicahe 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 thehanc igiturtill near thePater 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 theMementofor 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 thePater Nosterand 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 thePater Nosteris 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 abig foolhe 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 inThe Monthon 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.'"
Towards the close of October, 1888, two months before death, Doctor Begen saw that the end was approaching. This was evident from a sudden and general failure of strength, the appetite, not much at any time, seeming now to vanish quite away, although Father Hecker's strong will forced down a little nourishment. This loss of strength caused the heart to work badly and to give an occasional sudden alarm. Internal congestions followed, relaxing the bowels and causing much bodily annoyance. Meantime he was hardly ever out of his room and many days he spent entirely in bed. His fits of depression of spirits were more frequent than usual and more saddening. He no longer rested at all, what sleep he got being produced by drugs and serving but to pass the time unconsciously. From the beginning of December he was apt to fall into a semi-comatose state, though generally in full use of his faculties. Some days before he died he seemed to realize that the long struggle was nearly over, and he no longer talked to the doctor or others of the medicines or of his bodily ailments, nor did he seem to think of them; and his mind appeared to have suddenly grown peaceful. The Scriptures as well as other books were read to him, as usual, up to the very evening before he died. On the night of the 20th of December, two days after his sixty-ninth birthday, the last sacraments were administered, Father Hecker receiving them without visible emotion but in full consciousness. During the following day he was quiet and apparently free from acute pain, the benumbed body refusing to suffer more; but the mind calm and attentive. When the morning of the 22d came all could see that his time was near at hand. In the middle of the forenoon the members of the community were gathered at the bedside, the prayers for the dying were read and the indulgence was given. As this was over the doctor arrived, and Father Hecker, who had gradually lost advertence to all around him, was roused by him into full consciousness, and gave the community his blessing, feebly raising his hand to make the sign of the cross and uttering the words in a light whisper. Then he sank away into unconsciousness and in an hour ceased to breathe.
And so Father Hecker died. Our beloved teacher and father, so blameless and brave, so gentle and daring, so full of God and of humanity, entered into his eternal beatitude.
Dying on Saturday, and so near Christmas, the funeral was delayed till Wednesday, the feast of St. Stephen, the body being embalmed. Christmas afternoon it was placed in the church and was visited and venerated by great throngs of people. A vast concourse attended the Requiem Mass the next morning, which was sung by Archbishop Corrigan surrounded by many priests, an eloquent sermon being preached by Father T. J. Campbell, the Provincial of the Jesuits. The body was placed in the vaults of the old cathedral.
The life we have been following is a harmonious whole from beginning to end. The child tells of the youth, the youth promises a noble man, and the promise is more than fulfilled. He was guileless; no dark ways of forbidden pleasure ever heard the sound of his footstep. There was no barter of conscience for ambition's prize. He was fearless; from beginning to end there was no halt from want of courage. Nor did he rush forward before the light came to show the road, though he often chafed and panted to hear the word of Divine command; he never moved at any other. But when the voice of God bade him forward he never flinched at any obstacle. The ever-recurring persuasion that there were so few who saw God's will as he saw it cut him to the heart, and the mystery of the Divine times and moments grew upon him with fatal force till the end, until he drooped and pined away with grief that he could but taste the first-fruits. Yet he was ever submissive to the Divine Will, to live, to die, to begin, to end the work, to be alone or to be of many brethren, to lead or to follow. Though a most active spirit, he was yet contemplative, and to unite the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the inner and outer life was the end he always kept in view; but he was distinctively an interior man.
Few men since the Apostles have felt a quicker pulse than Isaac Hecker when the name of God was heard, or that of Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit. Few men have had a nobler pride in the Church of Christ, or felt more one with her honor. Few men have grown into closer kinship with all the family of God, from Mary the great mother and the holy angels down to the simplest Catholic, than Isaac Hecker. But his peculiar trait was fidelity to the inner voice. "There are some," he once said, "for whom the predominant influence is the external one, authority, example, etc.; others in whose lives the interior action of the Holy Spirit predominates. In my case, from my childhood, God influenced me by an interior light and by the interior touch of his Holy Spirit." The desperate demand of Philip, "Lord, show us the Father and it is enough," was Father Hecker's cry all through early life. After the founding of his community, in 1858, his life was like an arctic year. From that date till 1872 there was no set of sun. The unclouded heavens bent over him ever smiling with God's glorious light; and its golden tints lit up all humanity with hope and joy. Then the sun went down to rise no more. The heavens were dark and silent, or rent asunder with wrathful storms, only a transient flash of the aurora relieving the gloom. When the light dawned again it was to beam upon his soul in the ecstasies of Paradise.
We know not what to say of his faults, nor can we think that he had any that were not to be traced to his eager love of God's cause, such as his overpowering men with pleading for God in their souls; or too easily crediting unworthy men who prated to him of liberty and the Holy Spirit; or over-fondness during his illness for playing in the lists of fancy at an apostolate denied him in the battle of active life; he repined at being forced to plan great battles in a sick-room. He could not help betraying a heart heaving with a pent-up ocean of zeal, while he was creeping about helplessly, often too feeble to speak above his breath. A lover of liberty, its only boon to him at last was liberty to accept and rivet upon himself the chain of patient love.
Some may say "Hecker was before his time." But no man is before his time if, having a divine message, he can get but one other to accept it, can arrest men's attention, can cause them to ponder, to ask why or why not, whether this be the day or only its vigil. The sower is not before his time though he dies before the harvest; there is a time to sow and a time to reap.
And now the tree is dead, but its ripe fruits are in our bosoms bearing living seeds, which will spring up in their time and give fruit again each according to its kind.
The life of Father Hecker is a strong invitation to the men of these times to become followers of God the Holy Ghost, to fit their souls by prayer and penance in union with Christ and his Church, for the consecration of liberty and intelligence to the elevation of the human race to union with God. We do not bid him farewell, for this age, and especially this nation, will hail him and his teachings with greater and greater acclaim as time goes on. As God guides His Church to seek her Apostolate mainly in developing men's aspirations for better things into fulness of Catholic truth and virtue, Isaac Hecker will be found to have taught the principles and given the methods which will lead most surely to success.
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THE ORATORY, BIRMINGHAM, February 28, 1889.
MY DEAR FATHER HEWIT: I was very sorrowful at hearing of Father Hecker's death. I have ever felt that there was this sort of unity in our lives—that we had both begun a work of the same kind, he in America and I in England, and I know how zealous he was in promoting it. It is not many months since I received a vigorous and striking proof of it in the book he sent me [The Church and the Age]. Now I am left with one friend less, and it remains with me to convey through you my best condolement to all the members of your society.
Hoping that you do not forget me in your prayers,I am, dear Father Hewit,most truly yours,JOHN H. CARD. NEWMAN.
THE ORATORY, BIRMINGHAM, March 15, 1890.
DEAR FATHER HEWIT: In answer to your letter I am glad to be told what is so interesting to me, viz., that the Life of Father Hecker is in preparation. I had a great affection and reverence towards him, and felt that which so many good Catholics must have felt with me on hearing of his illness and death. I wish, as you ask me, that I could say something more definite than this of his life and writings, but my own correspondence with friends, and especially the infirmities of my age, burden me and make it impossible for me to venture upon it. This, alas! is all that I have left me now by my years towards the fulfilment of welcome duties to the grateful memory of an effective Catholic writer (I do not forget his work in England) and a Benefactor, if I may use the term, to the Catholic Religion, whose name will ever be held in honor by the Catholic Church.
Yours most truly,J. H. N.
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I first knew Father Hecker in 1873, meeting him at a Catholic Congress held at Ferney and presided over by Monsignor Mermillod. Father Hecker visited Geneva several times after that, living in the closest intimacy with our family. He spent several weeks on a visit with my father, Dr. Dufresne, at a chalet situated on Salane mountain above Geneva, being at the time in feeble health and seeking recovery by a prolonged sojourn in Europe. For this enforced inactivity he recompensed himself by continual and earnest conversations, for the purpose of gaining to his ideas all whom he believed capable of understanding them, whether Protestants or Catholics. There was about him an indescribable charm which mysteriously drew one to him and penetrated one with his influence. Although he did not know French thoroughly and preferred to use English, yet he spoke with such power, elevation, exuberance, and depth of thought that he captivated his hearers.
When I made Father Hecker's acquaintance I had just lost my eyesight, being at the end of my ecclesiastical studies, and not yet ordained. He did my soul much good by teaching me a kind of holiness which was joined to lively intelligence and the most energetic activity. Father Hecker remains to me not only the type of an American priest, but of the modern one, the kind needed by the Church for the recovery of the ground lost as a result of Protestantism and infidelity, as well as to enable her to start anew in her divine mission.
The principal impression produced by Father Hecker on those who came in contact with him was one of sanctity. In his company one felt his whole being influenced as if by something venerable and supernatural, and a constant inclination to correspond to the action of the Holy Spirit and submit the human will to the divine. In conversing with him about spiritual things one was transported into a higher region, the heart growing warmer and the conscience more sensitive. Father Hecker plainly inclined by habit to the type of character given us by Jesus Christ. He suffered much, both physically from weakness of nerves and morally on account of enforced inactivity, yet he not only never complained but was always cheerful. This was the greater merit in him because he seemed by nature impatient of opposition and contradiction. He had a sagacious mind and easily discovered the faults of others, but, although he spoke of men and affairs with openness and candor, he yet ever sought for favorable interpretations. Like St. Francis de Sales, he knew how to judge of people and yet remain full of charity for his neighbor. Profoundly individual, and profoundly attached to his ideas, like all Anglo-Saxons, and in fact like all who have acquired the Protestant habit of free inquiry, he nevertheless had for the Church a docility almost naïve and infantile; and this was because he recognized in her the authority and the action of the Holy Spirit.
It may be said of him without exaggeration that he was every moment ready, if it became necessary, to bear witness to the divinity of the Church by martyrdom, and in fact he often made that declaration. In him the most heroic virtue was faith. He had come into the Catholic Church in spite of the most extreme natural repugnance, and he remained in it, overcoming the perpetual objection of Protestants that Catholicity could not be the truth because Catholic countries had become the least powerful and the least prosperous in the civilized world. On this point he loved to expound the text of Scripture which says that it is better to lose an eye and an arm and enter into the kingdom of heaven, than to save both, and fall into hell. His piety was wholly interior. It consisted in the perpetual exercise of the presence of God. He had a natural disinclination for devotional practices as they are in vogue among the southern races.
His tendency was to spiritualize as much as possible all the devotions in use in the Church. His own principal one was to the Holy Ghost and His divine Gifts. He never spoke of the Incarnation and the Eucharist without deep emotion and a contagious love. As to devotion to the Blessed Virgin, he explained it in a most elevated manner, ever showing, and with great dignity and nobility of manner, how it flowed from the principle of the divine maternity. The last book he sent me was one on the Blessed Virgin written by an American priest. Since Father Hecker's death I have never failed a single day to invoke him in my prayers, and to his intercession I attribute many graces obtained, some of them very important.
Father Hecker had a marvellous openness of heart. I heard him relate several times the story of his life, his conversion, his joining the Redemptorists, his case before the Roman Congregations, and the founding of the Paulist community. I can still recall the banks of the Lake of Geneva at the Villa Bartoloni, where Father Hecker, walking with a friend and myself, told us of his leaving the Redemptorist order. It was the way in which he talked of so delicate a matter that enabled me to appreciate that the man was a saint. He liked to repeat, while on this subject, what Cardinal Deschamps had said of him: "Here is a man who has been able to leave our Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer without committing even a venial sin."
In my opinion, Father Hecker was, after Père Lacordaire, the most remarkable sacred orator of the century. This does not apply to his writings, for his ideas lost much of their force in the process of getting into print. Like all natural orators his chief quality was a power of drawing and persuading, which, to use an expression often applied to Père Lacordaire, had something magnetic about it. He had a prodigious gift of showing his Protestant or infidel hearers that their own hearts and their own reason aspired by instinct towards the Catholic truth which he was teaching them. In that way he drew his hearers to discover the truth in their own minds instead of receiving it by force of argument or any extrinsic authority. To acquire this power he had made a great study of the Gospel, and, sustained by Divine grace, he went about the exposition of the truth as Jesus Christ did. One of the most original aspects of his mind was that he joined the practical sense of the American to the taste and aptitude of the European for speculation. He had not been able to make a complete course of studies because he had spent several years in commercial life, but he had great natural gifts for metaphysics, theology, and above all mysticism.
Unlike the English converts of the Oxford school, he had reached Catholicity by way of liberal Protestantism, which he had renounced because it could not satisfy the religious aspirations of his nature. It would be interesting to study his case in connection with those of Newman and Manning, for it shows that souls are led to Catholicity by all roads, even the most opposite, and that minds most inclined to rationalize can be drawn to the Church as easily as those of a conservative or traditional temperament.
But I wish to dwell especially on what preoccupied Father Hecker's mind and formed the fundamental theme of his eloquent words. We were just on the morrow of the Vatican Council, of the defeat of France by Prussia, and in the first agonies of the Culturkampf in Germany and Italy. Now, if one remembers that Father Hecker was of an American family originally from the town of Elberfeld, Prussia, he can better understand the gravity of the problem which weighed upon his mind, as upon that of so many others. Must we admit, it was asked, that the Council of the Vatican has affixed its seal upon the decadence of Catholicity, binding the Church to the failing fortunes of the Latin races? Must Protestantism finally triumph with the Saxon races? And here Father Hecker's faith did not halt an instant, but grasped the difficulty in all its terrible magnitude. His solution may be questioned by some, but I believe that no one will dispute that the mind which conceived it was of the first order.
Father Hecker remarked, as did many others, that, starting from the sixteenth century, the Church, although ever exerting a considerable influence, no longer appeared at the head of the world's activity. This was in contrast with what she had done in the era of the conversion of the Roman Empire, during that of the invasion of the barbarians, and amid the immense religious movement which characterized the apogee of the Middle Ages. Father Hecker discovered the cause of this lessening influence in the fact that since the sixteenth century the Church had been compelled to stand upon the defensive. This had greatly paralyzed her power of initiation and her liberty. As a consequence of the Protestant heresy, which threatened the utter destruction of the principle of authority, the Church had been forced to concentrate on that side of her fortress all her means of defence. In order to protect herself from the excesses of the principle of individuality and free inquiry, she had been obliged to resort to a multitude of restrictive measures, which were conceived in a very different spirit from that which animated her in previous centuries. In the sixteenth century the Church placed before everything else the idea of authority. She sacrificed the development of personality to fostering the association of men whose wills were absolutely merged by discipline in one powerful body. It can be seen at a glance how intimately and profoundly the spirit of the dominant religious orders of the later era differs from that of the great orders of the Middle Ages, in respect to the expansion of nature and the development of individuality. The needs of the sixteenth century were altogether different from those of the ages preceding it, and to meet those needs God inspired St. Ignatius with the idea of a different type of Christian character. The result was the triumphant repulse of Protestantism from all the southern nations. But the victory was gained at the price of real sacrifices; the Catholics of the recent centuries have not displayed the puissant individuality of those of the Middle Ages, the types of which are St. Bernard, St. Gregory VII., Innocent III., St. Thomas Aquinas. The Divine Spirit often exacts the sacrifice of certain human qualities for the preservation of the faith; and it is in this sense that we should interpret the mysterious words of Jesus Christ, that it is better to lose an eye and an arm and not fall into hell, than to save an eye and an arm and be lost eternally.
The Council of the Vatican, Father Hecker maintained, by giving to the principle of authority its dogmatic completion, has placed it above all attacks, and consequently has brought to a close the historical period in which it was necessary to devote all efforts to its defence. A new period now opens to the Church. She has been engaged during three centuries in perfecting her external organism, and securing to authority the place it should have in working out her divine life; she will now undertake quite another part of her providential mission. It is now to be the individuality, the personality of souls, their free and vigorous initiative under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, which shall become the distinctive Catholic form of acting in these times. And this will all be done under the control of her divine supreme authority in the external order preventing error, eccentricity, and rashness.
The Latin races were fitted by nature to be the principal instruments of the Holy Spirit during the period just passed. In the new one the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic races, of a nature strongly individual and independent, will take their turn as instruments of Divine Providence. This is not saying that the development of the Church is the result of the natural aptitudes of races, but that God, who has created these aptitudes, takes them one after the other, and at the hours He chooses, and causes them to serve as instruments for carrying out His designs. It was thus, from the fourth to the seventh century, that He made use of the metaphysical subtilty implanted by Him in the Greek genius, issuing in all those great definitions which have fixed not only the substance but the verbal form of Catholic dogma. Hence the first general councils were all held in the East.
Father Hecker cherished hopes for the conversion of the Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races. Doubtless God could convert them suddenly, but considering the way heretofore followed that conversion will be brought about insensibly and by the two following instrumentalities: On the one hand, the new development of individuality in souls within the Church will create a sympathetic attraction towards her on the part of Protestants, who will discover affinities with her of which they were wholly unaware. On the other hand, the more the Protestant races expand, the more they will find the dwarfed Christianity which they profess falling short of their aspirations, and by that means they will be inclined towards Catholicity. It is not a little remarkable that Father Hecker expressed himself thus during the last years of the pontificate of Pius IX., at a moment when such ideas seemed to be least in favor in high Catholic circles. But soon afterwards the pontificate of Leo XIII. began, and with it a movement in the spirit indicated by the American priest, and in a manner so strikingly in accord with his views that Father Hecker seemed to have been enlightened from above in his presages of the future.
Father Hecker developed a grand theological synthesis of what he called the exterior and interior mission of the Holy Spirit in the Church. He has explained it in a pamphlet; but how much more impressive it was when he expounded it in person! We had the privilege of hearing him do so in a long conversation with the most celebrated Protestant minister of French-speaking countries, the illustrious philosopher and orator, Ernest Naville. Father Hecker said that the antipathy of Protestants for the Church arose from the fact that they imagined that Catholicity reduced all religion to obedience to external authority. Protestants, on the other hand, pretend to place all religion in the interior life, directly generated in souls by the Holy Spirit, and it is for this reason that Catholicity impresses them as a tyrannical usurpation and a stupid formalism. In this they are deceived, as a close acquaintance with Catholics and with such writings as those of St. Francis de Sales and St. Teresa soon proves to them. So, also, when they fancy that the authority of the Church is not necessary to the preservation of the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul. As a matter of fact, the innumerable divisions of Protestants among themselves plainly show that the interior action of the Holy Ghost does not extend to making each individual infallible. To safeguard souls against deception, scepticism or illuminism, there is need of another action of the Holy Spirit which shall be conservative of the interior life. That other action is exterior, and is exercised by means of the authority of the Church. The Holy Spirit cannot be brought into contradiction with Himself. By His action in the exterior authority of the Church He can never interfere in the least degree with the fulness or the spontaneity of His own interior action in souls.
The exterior action is one of control and of verification, to hinder souls from being lost in the depths of illusion and in the deceits of pride. But besides this, humility, obedience, self-abnegation, virtues dear by excellence to the heart of Jesus Christ, are impossible without due submission to the external authority. When one believes only in himself, he obeys only himself, and hence has never practised complete renunciation nor complete humility.
Father Hecker also maintained that the direction of souls in confession should be made to strengthen and develop individual life. We do not need blood-letting, he said, as if we suffered from plethora, but rather we need a course of tonics, sea-baths, and the invigorating air of the mountains. We should not hold our penitents in leading-strings, but should teach them to live a self-reliant life under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Souls tempered by that process would render the Church a thousand times more service than they do now.
No doubt such souls may sometimes run the risk of pride and of temptation to revolt. But in such cases the Church is so provided with power by the dogma of infallibility, as proclaimed by the Vatican Council, as to be able to counteract this danger without serious loss, as was proved in the case of Döllinger and the Old Catholics.
The Holy Spirit, preparing for a great development of individual life, has made provision beforehand that the Church should be armed with power sufficient to repress all waywardness, and this was done by the Vatican Council. Some had feared that the definition of infallibility would introduce an extravagant use of authority, and lead to a diminution of reasonable liberty and individuality in the Church even greater than before. But the very contrary has been the result.
With reference to the interior life, I can affirm that Father Hecker's was full and rich. Having spent the greater part of his life in a devouring activity, at its close he lived as a true contemplative. He was a genuine mystic. We heard him discourse with marvellous beauty on the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, expounding these great truths in a way not only to enrapture one with their splendor, but utterly to refute deism, pantheism, and materialism. The latter error, he said, owed its introduction partly to the fact that Protestantism had refused to the senses their legitimate place in divine worship, this excessive spiritualizing having brought about a reaction.
Father Hecker often spoke of the future reserved for Catholicity in the United States, saying that it was there that the union of the Church with democracy would first take place. In that nation the prejudice against the Church is not so strong as in Europe, and her position is free from the embarrassments of traditional difficulties. Catholicity is there valued for its immediate effect upon human nature, and the rancor born of historical recollections is not in such full control of men's minds; hence conversions are more easily made. Furthermore, Father Hecker believed that it would finally be discovered that the Protestant spirit is contrary to the political spirit of the American Republic. America has based her Constitution on the fact that man is born free, reasonable, and capable of self-government. The Protestant Reformers, on the contrary, never ceased to teach that original sin deprived man of his free will and made him incapable of performing virtuous acts; and if Protestants seek to escape from this whirlpool of fatalism, they fall into infidelity. The day will come when Americans will admit that if they are to be at once religious and reasonable, they must become Catholics. Therefore, whether it be acknowledged or not, every development of political liberty in the United States contributes to the advance of Catholicity. The Constitution of the United States has formulated the political principles most conformable to the Canons of the Council of Trent.