a
trackless desert, obtains a map which not only makes his whole route
plain, but assures him that he did not stray from well-known paths
even during his times of most extreme bewilderment.

That the diary has the character we here claim for it, and is not the
mere ordinary result of a morbid and aimless introspection, is
plainly shown by the speedy cessation of excessive self-analysis on
Father Hecker's part, after he had actually reached the goal to which
he was at this period alternately sweetly led and violently driven.
But it is also shown by the deep humility which is revealed precisely
by this sharp probing of his interior. Though he felt himself in
touch with God in some special way, yet it was with so little pride
that it was his profound conviction, as it remained, indeed,
throughout his life, that what he had all had or might have. But the
study of his interior thus forced upon him was far from a pleasing
task. "It is exceedingly oppressive to me to write as I now do," we
find him complaining; "continually does myself appear in my writing.
I would that my I were wholly lost in the sea of the Spirit--wholly
lost in God."

We preface the subjoined extract from the diary with the remark that
Father Hecker's reading of signs of the Divine will in men and events
often brought him to the verge of credulity, over which he was
prevented from stepping by his shrewd native sense. Though he
insisted all his life on interpreting them as signal flags of the
Divine wisdom, this did not hinder him from gaining a reputation for
sound practical judgment:

"Brook Farm, July 31, 1843.--Man is the symbol of all mysteries. Why
is it that all things seem to me to be instinct with prophecy? I do
not see any more individual personalities, but priests and oracles of
God. The age is big with a prophecy which it is in labor to give
birth to."

"My experience is different now from what it has been. It is much
fuller; every fibre of my being seems teeming with sensitive life. I
am in another atmosphere of sentiment and thought. . . . I have less
real union and sympathy with _her,_ and with those whom I have met
much nearer heretofore. It appears as if their atmosphere was denser,
their life more natural, more in the flesh. Instead of meeting them
on my highest, I can only do so by coming down into my body, of which
it seems to me that I am now almost unconscious. There is not that
sense of heaviness, dulness, fleshliness, in me. I