Life of Father Hecker Part 14

Your labor is already too great, and I am burdening you with more. . . .

"How much my heart loves you all! How unkindly I have spoken to you at times! You will forgive me and love me none the less, will you not? May we live together more and more in the unity of love."

"May, 1844.--. . . My studies are pursued with the same spirit in which they were commenced, and there seems to me no reason to fear but that they will be continued in the same for some time to come.

However, I would affirm what has been affirmed by me for these two years back, the only consistency that I can promise is submission to the Spirit that is guiding me, whatever may be the external appearance or superficial consequences to others. . . .

"How our astonishment should be excited to perceive that we have been in such a long sleep, and that even now we see but dimly. Let us each ask ourselves in whose business we are employed. Is it our Father's, or is it not? If not, let us immediately turn to the business of our Father, the only object of our life. Let us submit wholly to the guidance of Love."

"TO MRS. CATHERINE J. HECKER. Concord, May 31, 1844.--You speak of my situation as pleasant, and so it is to me. Though the house is situated on the street of a village, the street is beautifully arched with trees for some distance, and my room is very pleasant. One window is wholly shaded by sweet honeysuckle, which is now in blossom, filling the room with its mild fragrance. The little humming-birds visit its flowers frequently without being disturbed by my presence."

The diary, which runs side by side with these letters, was, as usual, the recipient of more intimate self-communings than could be shared with any friend. It shows that although he was now well-nigh convinced of the truth of Catholicity, yet that he still felt a lingering indecision, produced, perhaps, by a haunting memory of the stern front of "discipline" he had encountered in Bishop Hughes. This seemed like a phantom of terror to the young social reformer, whose love of liberty, though rational, was then and ever afterwards one of the pa.s.sions of his soul. Yet we rarely find now in these pages any statement of specific reasons for and against Catholicity such as were plentiful during the period preceding his acquaintance with Mr.

Haight, Dr. Seabury, and Mr. Norris. He seems to shudder as he stands on the bank and looks upon the flowing and cleansing stream; but his hesitancy is caused not so much by any unanswered difficulties of his reason as by his sensibilities, by vague feelings of alarm for the integrity of his manhood. He feared lest the waters might cleanse him by skinning him alive. Catholicity, as typified in Bishop Hughes, her Celtic-American champion, seemed to him "a fortified city, and a pillar of iron, and a wall of bra.s.s against the whole land."

Now, Isaac Hecker was built for a missionary, and the extreme view of the primary value of highly-wrought discipline which he encountered everywhere among Catholics, though not enough to blind him to the essential liberty of the Church, was enough to delay him in his progress to her. There can be little doubt that mult.i.tudes of men and women of less discernment and feebler will than his, have been and still are kept entirely out of the Church by the same cause.

Only at long intervals, as we near the last pages of the large and closely-written book containing the first volume of his diary, do we meet with those agonizing complaints of dryness, the distress of doubt, the weary burden of insoluble difficulties, so common heretofore. He seems, indeed, no longer battling; be victory is won; but it remains to know what are the spoils and where they are to be gathered. Of course there are interludes of his irrepressible philosophizing on moral questions. And at the very end, under date of May 23, 1844, we find the following:

"This afternoon brings me to the close of this book. How different are the emotions with which I close it from those with which I opened it at Brook Farm, now little more (a month) than a year ago! How fruitful has this year been to me! How strangely mysterious and beautiful! And now my soul foreshadows more the next year than ever it presaged before. My life is beyond my grasp, and bears me on will-lessly to its destined haven. Like a rich fountain it overflows on every side; from within flows unceasingly the noiseless tide. The many changes and unlooked-for results and circ.u.mstances, within and without, of the coming year I would no more venture to antic.i.p.ate than to count the stars. It is to me now as if I had just been born, and I live in the Sabbath of creation. Every thing that I see I feel called on to give a name; it has a new meaning to me. Should this life grow--what? It is a singular fact that, although conscious of a more interior and potent force at work within, I am now more quiet and will-less than I was when it at first affected me. I feel like a child, full of joy and pliability; and all ambition of every character seems to have left me. I see where I was heretofore, and the degree of externality which was mixed with the influences that I co-operated with, an externality from which I now feel that I have been freed. It does seem to me that all worldly prospect that ever was before me is gone, and as if I were weak, very weak, in the sight of the world; so I really am. I feel no more potency than a babe. Yet I have a will-less power of love which will conquer through me, and which, O gracious Lord, I never dreamt of before."

In the middle of the above entry he thus notes an interruption, and records a lesson taught by the late New England spring: "George and Burrill Curtis came in, and I have just returned from a walk in the woods with them. May the buds within blossom, and may their fruit ripen in my prayers to G.o.d."

He was now, indeed, very near his goal, though even yet he did not clearly see it. And once more all his active powers deserted him.

Study became impossible. His mind was drawn so strongly in upon itself that neither work nor play, neither books nor the renewed intercourse which at this period he sought with his old friends in Boston and at Brook Farm, could any longer fasten his attention. He opens his new diary with a record of the trial he has just made in order to discover "whether in mixing with the world I should not be somewhat influenced by their life and brought into new relations with my studies. But it was to no purpose that I went. . . . There was no inducement that I could imagine strong enough to keep me from returning. Ole Bull, whom I very much wished to hear again, was to play the next evening; and Parley Pratt, a friend whom I had not met for a great length of time, and whom I did wish to see, was to be in town the next day. There were many other things to keep me, but none of them had the least effect. I could no more keep myself there than a man could sink himself in the Dead Sea, and so I had to come home.

"I feel a strong inclination to doze and slumber, and more and more in these slumbers the dim shadows that appear in my waking state become clearer, and my conversation is more real and pleasant to me.

I feel a double consciousness in this state, and think, 'Now, is not this real? I will recollect it all, what I saw and what I said'; but it flies and is lost when I awake. . . . I call this sleeping, but sleep it is not; for in this state I am more awake than at any other time."

A few days later, on June 5, he notes that

"Although my meals are made of unleavened bread and figs, and my drink is water, and I eat no more than supports my body, yet do I feel sinfully self-indulgent."

He resolves, moreover, to trouble himself no more about the fact that he cannot continue his studies. On this subject, and on the pa.s.sivity to which he was now compelled, he had written as explicitly as he could to his friend Brownson, and on June 7 he received a response which had such an immediate result upon his future that we transcribe it entire:

"Mt. Bellingham, June 6, 1844.--My dear Isaac: I thank you for your letter, and the frankness with which you speak of your present interior state. You ask for my advice, but I hardly know what advice to give. There is much in your present state to approve, also much which is dangerous. The dreamy luxury of indulging one's thoughts and ranging at ease through the whole spirit-world is so captivating, and when frequently indulged in acquires such power over us, that we cease to be free men. The power to control your thoughts and feelings and to fix them on what object you choose is of the last necessity, as it is the highest aim of spiritual culture. Be careful that you do not mistake a mental habit into which you have fallen for the guidance of the All-wise. Is it not the very sacrifice you are appointed to make, to overcome this spiritual luxury and to become able to do that which is disagreeable? Where is the sacrifice in following what the natural tendencies and fixed habits of our mind dispose us to do? What victory have you acquired, what power to conquer in the struggle for sanct.i.ty do you possess, when you cannot so far control your thoughts and feelings as to be able to apply yourself to studies which you feel are necessary? Here is your warfare. You have not won the victory till you have become as able to drudge at Latin or Greek as to give up worldly wealth, pleasures, honors, or distinctions.

"But, my dear Isaac, you cannot gain this victory alone, nor by mere private meditation and prayer. You can obtain it only through the grace of G.o.d, and the grace of G.o.d only through its appointed channels. You are wrong. You do not begin right. Do you really believe the Gospel? Do you really believe the Holy Catholic Church?

If so, you must put yourself under the direction of the Church. I have commenced my preparations for uniting myself with the Catholic Church. I do not as yet belong to the family of Christ. I feel it. I can be an alien no longer, and without the Church I know, by my own past experience, that I cannot attain to purity and sanct.i.ty of life.

I need the counsels, the aids, the chastis.e.m.e.nts, and the consolations of the Church. It is the appointed medium of salvation, and how can we hope for any good except through it? Our first business is to submit to it, that we may receive a maternal blessing.

Then we may start fair.

"You doubtless feel a repugnance to joining the Church. But we ought not to be ashamed of Christ; and the Church opens a sphere for you, and you especially. You are not to dream your life away. Your devotion must be regulated and directed by the discipline of the Church. You know that there is a large Roman Catholic population in our country, especially in Wisconsin. The bishop of that Territory is a German. Now, here is your work--to serve this German population.

And you can do it without feeling yourself among foreigners. Here is the cross you are to take up. Your cross is to resist this tendency to mysticism, to sentimental luxury, which is really enfeebling your soul and preventing you from attaining to true spiritual blessedness.

"I think you would better give up Greek, but command yourself sufficiently to master the Latin; that you need, and cannot do without. Get the Latin, and with that and the English, French, and German which you already know, you can get along very well. But don't be discouraged.

"I want you to come and see our good bishop. He is an excellent man--learned, polite, easy, affable, affectionate, and exceedingly warm-hearted. I spent two hours with him immediately after parting with you in Washington Street, and a couple of hours yesterday. I like him very much.

"I have made up my mind, and I shall enter the Church if she will receive me. There is no use in resisting. You cannot be an Anglican, you must be a Catholic or a mystic. If you enter the Church at all, it must be the Catholic. There is nothing else. So let me beg you, my dear Isaac, to begin by owning the Church and receiving her blessing.

"My health is very good, the family are all very well; I hope you are well. Let me hear from you often. Forgive me if I have said anything harsh or unkind in this letter, for all is meant in kindness, and be a.s.sured of my sincere and earnest affection.

"Yours truly,

"O. A. BROWNSON."

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CHAPTER XV

AT THE DOOR OF THE CHURCH

THE first effect of Brownson's letter was to throw its recipient into a state of great though brief perplexity. That final struggle, strange and painful, in which the soul for the last time contends against its happiness; in which it is drawn by an invincible attraction, knowing that it will yield yet striving still to resist; is one that must remain but half-comprehended by most of those to whom Catholic truth is an inheritance. And yet there is an explanation which Father Hecker himself would possibly have given.

"Do you know what G.o.d is?" he said to the present writer in 1882, in that abrupt fashion with which he often put the deepest questions.

"That is not what I mean," he went on, after getting a conventional reply: "I'll tell you what G.o.d is. _He is the eternal Lover of the soul."_ That shudder of blind aversion which is a part of the experience of so many converts, is an instinctive testimony that the call to the truth is more than natural, while the overpowering attraction which attends it witnesses that nature must needs obey or perish. The Church, too, is not heard by the soul merely as the collective voice of many men and ages of men agreed upon the truth, but as a mystic personality which makes her the imperative amba.s.sadress of Christ. For she is the Spouse of the Lamb, and in her the Incarnate Word obtains a voice which is no less single in its personality than mult.i.tudinous in its tones.

Much as Isaac Hecker had considered the matter, studying, reading, praying, a.s.suring himself from time to time that if any church were true this was the one, and that to enter it was probably his duty, now that Brownson's weight was likewise thrown into the scale and it went down with a warning thud, he thrilled through with apprehension.

"I feel like throwing all up," he wrote in the diary on the day the letter reached him. "Some cannot rest. _How much better would it have been could I have remained in quietness at my daily pursuits, and not been led to where I now find myself."_

Then he questions himself: "What have I against the Catholic Church?

At this moment I cannot say that I have anything that is essential.

And she meets my wants on every side.

"Oh, this is the deepest event of my life! I would have united myself to any one of the Protestant sects if I had found any that would have answered the demands of my nature. Why should I now hesitate when I find the Catholic Church will do so? Is not this the self-will which revolts against the involuntary will of the Spirit?

"The fundamental question is, Am I willing to submit my will to the guidance and direction of the Church? If she is the body of Christ; if she is the channel of the Holy Ghost; if she is the inspired body illumined by Christ's Spirit; in a word, if she _is_ the Catholic Church; if I would serve G.o.d and humanity; if I would secure the favor of G.o.d, and heaven hereafter; why should I not submit to her?"

But however painful this final indecision may have been, it was of short duration. Brownson's letter reached Concord on Friday morning, and on Sat.u.r.day Isaac Hecker went into Boston to see Bishop Fenwick and put himself under instruction. That done, his peace not merely returned, but he felt that it rested on more solid grounds than heretofore. Yet, curiously enough, it is at this point we come upon almost the first trace of his stopping seriously to consider the adverse sentiments of others with regard to any proposed action on his part. Now that he means to range himself, he turns to look back at the disorderly host which he is quitting, not so much, or at least not primarily for the sake of the order and regularity and solidity of that to which it is opposed, but because a true instinct has taught him that unity is the external mark of truth, as equilibrium is the test of a just balance. In his diary of June 11, 1844, after recording that he has just returned from Boston, where he has seen the bishop and his coadjutor, Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick, and received from the latter a note of introduction to the president of Holy Cross College, at Worcester, Ma.s.s., he adds:

"I intend to stay there as long as it seems pleasant to me, and then go on to New York and there unite myself with the Church.

"I sigh, and feel that this step is the most important of my life. My highest convictions, my deepest wants, lead me to it; and should I not obey them? There is no room to harbor a doubt about it. My friends will look upon it with astonishment, and probably use the common epithets, delusion, fanaticism, and blindness. But so I wish to appear to minds like theirs; otherwise this would be unsatisfactory to me. Men call that superst.i.tion which they have not the feeling to appreciate, and that fanaticism which they have not the spiritual perception to perceive. The Protestant world admires, extols, and flatters him who will write and speak high-sounding and heroic words; who will a.s.sert that he will follow truth wherever it leads, at all sacrifices and hazards; but no sooner does he do so than it slanders and persecutes him for being what he professed to be. Verily it _has_ separated faith from works.

"This is a heavy task; it is a great undertaking, a serious, sacred, sincere, and solemn step; it is the most vital and eternal act, and as such do I feel it in all its importance, weight, and power. O G.o.d!

Thou who hast led me by Thy heavenly messengers, by Thy divine grace, to make this new, unforeseen, and religious act of duty, support me in the day of trial. Support me, O Lord, in my confessions; give me strength and purity to speak freely the whole truth without any equivocation or attempt at justification. O Lord, help Thy servant when he is feeble and would fall.

"One thing that gives me much peace and joy is that all worldly inducements, all temptations toward self-gratification whatever, are in favor of the Anglican Church and in opposition to the Catholic Church. And on this account my conscience feels free from any unworthy motive in joining it. The Roman Catholic Church is the most despised, the poorest, and, according to the world, the least respectable of any; this on account of the cla.s.s of foreigners of which it is chiefly composed in this country. In this respect it presents to me no difficulty of any sort, nor demands the least sacrifice. But the new relations in which it will place me, and the new duties which will be required of me, are strange to me, and hence I shall feel all their weight at once."

His premonitions were speedily fulfilled, though probably not in the extreme form which he antic.i.p.ated. The spirit of courtesy which prevailed throughout his family doubtless prevented any but the mildest criticism on his action. But even that had hitherto been spared him. There had been anxiety and much questioning about his final course, but that it would end in this way does not seem to have been seriously apprehended. On the same day on which he made the entry just quoted he wrote the following letter to them:

"June 11, 1844.--On Sat.u.r.day last I went into Boston and did not return until this morning (Tuesday). . . . My purpose in going was to see Bishop Fenwick of the Roman Catholic Church, to learn what are the preliminaries necessary for one who wishes to be united to the Church. I saw the bishop and his coadjutor, men of remarkable goodness, candor, and frankness. I was chiefly interested with his coadjutor, and spent some hours with him on Monday. And this is the result to which I have come: That soon, probably next week, I shall go from here to Worcester, where there is a Catholic college, and stay there for a few days, perhaps a fortnight, to see the place, become acquainted with their practical religious life and their system of intellectual instruction. From there I shall go on home to New York, and, after having gone through the requisite preliminaries, be united to the Roman Catholic Church in our city. . . . Before I make any unalterable step, I wish to see you all and commune with you concerning this movement on my part. . . .

"Whatever theories and speculations may be indulged in and cherished by those opposed to the Roman Catholic Church, their influence, however important they may seem, is not sufficiently vital to prevent me from being united to it. It satisfies and meets my deepest wants; and on this ground, setting aside any other for the moment, I feel like affirming, in the spirit of the man whom Christ made to see.* I know not whether this Church be or be not what certain men call it, but this I know: it has the life my heart is thirsting for, and of which my spirit is in great need.

[* John 9:24: We know this man is a sinner. He said therefore to them: If he be a sinner, I know not; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.]

"A case in point: The sermon of Dr. Seabury on the lamented death of Arthur Carey is as far from satisfying my heartfelt longings as Platonism would be to the Christian. Read the doctrine of the Catholic Church on the Communion of Saints in the Catechism of the Council of Trent attentively and devoutly, and you will see and feel the wide difference in doctrine and life between it and that held even by the high-church Anglican. It may be said in excuse for Dr.