Life of Father Hecker - Walter Elliott

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he needed in order to come to a full understanding with himself. He wrote to George Ripley in his behalf and later undertook to reconcile the Hecker household with Isaac's determination to go thither.

      It was during his stay at Chelsea that Isaac first began plainly to acquaint his family with the fact that his departure meant something more important than the moderately prolonged change of scene and circumstances which they had recognized as essential to his health. We shall make abundant extracts from the letters which begin at this date, convinced that his own words will not only afford the best evidence of the strength of the interior pressure on him, but will show also its unique and constant bent.

      Our purpose is to show, in the most explicit manner possible, first, how irresistibly he was impelled toward the celibate life and the practice of poverty; and second, that in yielding to this impulse, he was also drawn away from his former view of our Saviour, as simply the perfect man, to the full acceptance of the supernatural truth that He is the Incarnate God.

      It is at this period of Father Hecker's life that we first meet with a positive interference of an extraordinary kind in the plans and purposes of his life. Many men who have outlived them, and settled down into respectable but in nowise notable members of society, have felt vague longings and indefinite aspirations toward a good beyond nature during the "Storm and Stress" period of their youth. The record of their mental struggles gets into literature with comparative frequency, and sometimes becomes famous. It has always a certain value, if merely as contributing to psychological science; but in any particular instance is of passing interest only, unless it can be shown to have been instrumental in shaping the subsequent career. The latter was the case with Father Hecker. The extraordinary influences already mentioned continued to dominate his intelligence and his will, sometimes with, oftener without, explicit assignment of any cause. It is plain enough that, up to the time when they began, he had looked forward to such a future of domestic happiness as honest young fellows in his position commonly desire. "He was the life of the family circle," says one who knew the Hecker household intimately; "he loved his people, and was loved by them with great intensity, and his going away must have been most painful to him as well as to them."

      On this point the memoranda, so often to be referred to, contain some words of his own to the same purport. They were spoken early in 1882: "You know I had to leave my business—a good business it was getting to be, too. I tell you, it was agony to give everything up—friends, prospects in life and old associates; things for which by nature I had a very strong attachment. But I could not help it; I was driven from it. I wanted something more; something I had not been able to find. Yet I did not know what I wanted. I was simply in torment."

      The truth is that, while he had always cherished ideals higher than are usual, still they were not such as need set him apart from the common life of men. But now he became suddenly averse from certain pursuits and pleasures, not only good in themselves, but consonant to his previous dispositions. The road to wealth lay open before him, but his feet refused to tread it. He was invincibly drawn to poverty, solitude, sacrifice; modes of life from which he shrank by nature, and which led to no goal that he could see or understand. There is no name so descriptive of such impulses as supernatural.

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      LED BY THE SPIRIT

      THE earliest of the letters so fortunately preserved by the affection of Isaac Hecker's kindred is addressed to his mother, from Chelsea, and bears date December 24, 1842. After giving some details of his arrival, and of the kindly manner in which he had been received, he writes:*

      [* We have corrected some slight errors of orthography and punctuation in these early letters. They were of the sort to be expected from a self-trained youth, as yet little used to the written expression of his thoughts. They soon disappear almost entirely.]

      "But as regards your advice to write my thoughts to you, that is an impossibility which I cannot govern or control. This ought not to be so, but so it is. Am I to blame? I feel not. And what if I could tell? It might be only a deep dissatisfaction which could not be made intelligible, or at least not be felt as it is felt by me. Let us be untroubled about it. A little time, and, I hope, all will pass away, and I be the same as usual. We all differ a little, at least in our characters; hence there is nothing surprising if our experiences should differ. I feel that a little time will be my best remedy, which I trust we will await without much anxiety. Resignation is taught when we cannot help ourselves. Take nothing I have said discouragingly. Turn fears into hopes and doubts into faith, and we shall be better if not happier. There is no use in allowing our doubts and fears to control us; by fostering them we increase them, and we want all our time for something better and higher."

      Two days later he writes more fully, and this letter we shall give almost entire:

      "Chelsea, December 26, 1842.—BROTHERS: I want to write to you, but what is the use of scrawling on paper if I write what I do not feel—intend? It is worse than not writing. And yet why I should be backward I don't know. The change that I have undergone has been so rapid and of such a kind; that may be the reason. I feel that as I now am perhaps you cannot understand me. I am afraid lest your conduct would be such that under present circumstances I could not stand under it. Do not misunderstand me. If I have ever appreciated anything in my life, it is the favor and indulgent treatment you have shown me in our business. I know that I have never done an equal share in the work which was for us all to do. I have always been conscious of this. I hope you will receive this as it is written, for I am open. Daily am I losing that disposition which was attributed to me of self-approval. … There is no reason why I should distrust your dispositions toward me but my own feelings, and it is these that have kept me back, that and the change my mind is undergoing. This is so continuous, and at the same time so firmly fixed, that I am unable to keep back any longer. I had hopes that my former life would return, so that I would be able to go on as usual, although this tendency has always been growing in me. But I find more and more that it is not possible. I would go back if I could, but the impossibility of that I cannot express. To continue as I am now would keep me constantly in an unsettled state of health, especially as my future appears to be opening before me with clearness. I say sincerely that I have lost all but this one thing, and how shall I speak it? My mind has lost all disposition to business; my hopes, life, existence, are all in another direction. No one knows how I tried to exert myself to work, or the cause of my inability. I was conscious of the cause, but as it was supposed to be a physical one, the reason of it was sought for, but to no purpose. In the same circumstances now I should be worse. When I say my mind cannot be occupied as formerly, do not attribute it to my wishes. This is what I fear; it makes me almost despair, makes me feel that I would rather die than live under such thoughts. I never could be happy if you thought so. My future will be my only evidence. My experience, which is now my own evidence, I cannot give you. To keep company with females—you know what I mean—I have no desire. I have no thought of marrying, and I feel an aversion to company for such an end. In my whole life I have never felt less inclined to it. If my disposition ran that way, marrying might lead me back to my old life, but oh! that is impossible. To give up, as I have to do, a life which has often been my highest aim and hope, is done with a sense of responsibility I never imagined before. This, I am conscious, is no light thought. It lies deeper than myself, and I have not the power to control it. I do not write this with ease; it is done in tears, and I have opened my mind as I have not done before. How all this will end I know not, but cannot but trust God. It is not my will but my destiny, which will not be one of ease and pleasure, but one which I contemplate as a perpetual sacrifice of my past hopes, though of a communion I had never felt. Can I adopt a course of life to increase and fulfil my present life? I am unable to give this decision singly. You will, I hope, accept this letter in the spirit I have written it. I speak to you in a sense I never have spoken to you before. In this letter I have opened as far as I could my inmost life. My heart is full and I would say a great deal more. Truly, a new life has opened to me, and to turn backward would be death. Not suddenly has it undergone this change, but

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