which it is not possible to
bring into the field of the really knowable? Some will admit that
religious feeling is as much a verity as any other part of human
consciousness, affirming, however, the subjectivity of all purely
spiritual life; and no more can be said, they insist, for the
principles, metaphysical and logical, with which they are associated
in the spiritual life of man. Now, such a theory never leaves the
soul that is governed by reason at rest. The problem ever and again
demands solution: are these yearnings, aspirations, unappeased
desires, or religious feelings--the ruling traits of the noblest men
and women--are they genuine, real, corresponding to and arising from
the reality of certain objects external to the soul? I think that in
the solution of this problem Dr. Brownson fought and won his greatest
victory; at any rate, it was to me the most interesting period of his
life. No wonder, since I had the same battle to fight myself, and it
was just at this epoch that I came into closest contact with him. We
fought this battle shoulder-to-shoulder."--_Catholic World,_
October, 1887, pp. 5-6.

Brownson's heavy heart was due to philosophical difficulties, and
Isaac Hecker's to the same; but in addition the latter had a mystical
experience to which Brownson was at that time, certainly, a stranger,
and, as far as we know, he remained so; and these mystical
difficulties demanded settlement far more imperatively than did the
philosophical ones. Isaac Hecker's inner life must have an external
adjunct of divine authority. Such aspirations of the soul for present
union with God in love as he had, are more peremptory in demanding
satisfaction than those of the logical faculty in demanding the
ascertainment of the certain truth. Philosophy outside the Church is
to the searcher after truth what St. Paul said the Law was to the
Jews, a schoolmaster; but, to a soul in the condition of Isaac
Hecker, the Holy Spirit is a spouse demanding union. Both Brownson
and himself were men true to their convictions, courageous and
unselfish. They were both firmly determined to have the truth and to
have the whole of it, whether spoken _ex cathedra_ in the divine
court of the innermost soul, or _ex cathedra_ by the supreme
authority of God in the organism of the Christian Church. "Brownson
was firmly persuaded," says Father Hecker, "and so am I, that the
great fault of men generally is that they deem the life of their
souls, thoug