The aid which fidelity to the light of reason and the cherishing and
obeying the inspirations of the Holy Spirit lends to the discovery of
the fulness of truth is shown by the following extract from an
article by Father Hecker in _The Catholic World_ of October, 1887:

"The man who establishes the historical identity of the Church of
to-day with the Apostolic college says the doctrines now taught must
be true; the man who perceives the identity of the Church's doctrines
with his own highest aspirations also proves them true. The man who
has become responsive to the primitive action of his reason says that
the Church, which is its only authoritative exponent, must be a
divinely appointed teacher. The infallible authority of the Church in
her past, present, and future teaching is established by the
necessity of the truths which she teaches for the welfare of the
human race, by thus completing the outlines of natural truth drawn by
the divine hand in human consciousness."

By this we see that, if the divine inner life had need of the divine
outer life for its integrity, it is equally certain that in his case,
and also in that of Dr. Brownson, the intimate action of God within
was a pointer to the true Church of the Divine Word incarnate in the
actual world of humanity: for Dr. Brownson chiefly in the
intellectual order, for Isaac Hecker in both the intellectual and
mystical. We have no fear of wearying the reader with the length of
an extract of such value as the following:

"The one who reaches Catholicity by the philosophical road, as
Brownson did, by no means pretends that the problem of human destiny
can be solved by mere force of reason: Catholicity is not
rationalism. Nor does he pretend that the product of reason's action,
the knowledge of human immortality and liberty and of the being of
God, place man apart from or above the universal action of God upon
all souls by means of a visible society and external ordinances:
Catholicity is well named; it is universal. But he knows that when a
man is persuaded of a truth philosophically he is not called upon by
his intelligence or his conscience to base it upon historical
evidence; it is enough that he has one source of certitude in its
favor. It may be a truth first known by revelation, but if the human
intelligence is capable of receiving it in revelation it must have
some element of kinship to the truths of pure reason. As in the order
of nature men are like unto God