nd all produced by hired labor. I suppose that slave
labor produces almost all my dress. And I cannot say that I am
rightly conditioned until all I eat, drink, and wear is produced by
love."

It was a vivid recollection of these early efforts after an ascetic
perfection which had neither guide nor definite plan, which prompted
the following vigorous self-appreciation, made by Father Hecker two
years before his death. He had been speaking of some of his youthful
experiments in this direction, and ended with an amused laugh and the
ejaculation,

"Thank God! He led me into the Catholic Church. If it hadn't been for
that I should have been one of the worst cranks in the world."

Here are two expressions taken from the diary of a permanent fact of
Father Hecker's individuality. They help to explain why he was
misunderstood by many in later years:

"Men have fear to utter absurdities. The head is sceptical of the
divine oracles of the heart, and before she utters them she clothes
them in such a fantastic dress that men hear the words but lose the
life, the thought."

"We often act to be understood by the heart, not by the head; and
when the head speaks of its having understood, we deny its
understanding. It is the secret sympathy of the heart which is the
only response that is looked for. Speech is cold, profane."

This must recall, to those who were intimate with Father Hecker, how
often he arrived at his own convictions by discussing them with
others while they were yet but partially formed. It is a custom with
many to do so, mind assisting mind, negation provoking affirmation,
doubt vanishing with the utterance of the truth. In Father Hecker's
case his perfect frankness led him, when among his own friends, to
utter half-formed ideas, sometimes sounding startling and erroneous,
but spoken with a view to get them into proper shape. At such times
it required patience to know just what he meant, for he never found
it the easiest to employ terms whose meaning was conventional.

By the first of September such faint hopes as Isaac had entertained
of adapting himself to the conditions of his home in New York were
well-nigh dissipated. But a certain natural timidity, joined with the
still complete uncertainty he felt as to what his true course should
be, made him dissemble his disquiet so long as it was bearable. After
a month or two, by a mutual agreement between his brothers and
himself which exonerated him from much of