rm as could be gathered from his own conversations in
later years were this happily-touched sketch, it could hardly be more
interesting than it is. But, fortunately, it does not stand alone.
Its fine recognition of the lofty purity of his nature is everywhere
borne out by the unpremeditated and candid self-revelations of the
diary. Their characteristic trait is everywhere aspiration--a sense
of joy in elevation above the earthly, or a sense of depression
because the earthly weighs him down. Then come eager glances of
inquiry in every direction for the satisfaction of his aspirations,
little by little narrowing down to the Catholic Church, wherein the
dove of Mr. Curtis's image was finally to rest his foot for ever. And
in all this he scarcely at all mentions a dread of the Divine wrath
as a motive for his flight. It is not out of the city of destruction,
but toward the celestial city that he goes. He is drawn by what he
wants, not hounded by what he fears. Always there is the reaching out
of a strong nature toward what it lacks--a material for its strength
to work on, a craving for rational joy, coupled with an
ever-increasing conviction that nature cannot give him such a boon.
Men who knew Father Hecker only in his royal maturity, sometimes
cavilled at his words of emphatic faith in guileless nature; but they
had only to know him a little better to learn his appreciation of the
supernatural order, and his recognition of its absolute and exclusive
competency to satisfy nature's highest aspirations. Reading these
early journals, we have constantly recalled the later days when he so
often, and sometimes continually, repeated, "Religion is a boon!" No
one could know that better than he who had so deeply felt the want it
satisfies.

The diary was begun in the middle of April, 1843, when Isaac had just
returned to Brook Farm after a fortnight spent at home. It opens with
a prayer for light and direction, which is its dedication to the uses
not only of an earnest but a religious seeker. He addresses himself
directly to God as Father, not making either appeal or reference to
our Lord. But there is in it an invocation to those "that are in
heaven to intercede and plead" for him, which recalls the fact, so
often mentioned by him, that it was the teaching of the Catechism of
the Council of Trent on the Communion of Saints which cleared away
his final clouds and brought him directly to the Church. There is a
note, too, among his