in due time and set up in the church, where it
ticked faithfully until the edifice was torn down, some forty years
later. Then it was returned to its maker in accordance with a promise
made by the pastor when the gift was accepted. In 1872 the opening
number of the third volume of _The Young Catholic_ contained a good
engraving of it, accompanied by a sketch descriptive of its career.
Although Father Hecker did not write the little story, it is so true
both to fact and to sentiment that we make an extract from it. The
clock hung in the Paulist sacristy for about ten years. Then, for
some reason, it was taken to the country house of Mr. George Hecker,
where it was accidentally destroyed by fire:

"There were points of resemblance in my own and my boy maker's
nature. In him, regularity, order, and obedience were fixed
principles; and with us both, Time represented Eternity. As the days
of his young manhood came his pursuits and tastes in life changed.
Deep thought took possession of his mind, and with it a tender love
for souls and a heart-hungriness for a further knowledge of what man
was given a soul for, and the way in which he was to save it. As
these thoughts were maturing in his mind I often noticed his troubled
look. One Sunday in particular, he lingered behind the congregation
and stood before me, with a new expression in his keen gray eye; and
amid the silence of the deserted aisles he thus apostrophized me:
'Farewell, old friend! fashioned by these hands, thou representest
Truth, the eternal. What man is ever seeking, through me thou hast
found. Here I stand, not man's but God's noblest work, as yet not
having repaid my Maker with one act of duty or of service. Thou hast
faithfully performed thy mission; henceforth I labor to perform
mine.' With a grave and sad look my boy maker, now a young man, left
me. I felt then that we had looked our last upon each other in this
place; but little did either of us dream of where, when, and how we
would meet again. For thirty-five years I labored on unchanged,
though I must own to having had some ailments now and then. About
this period of my existence I overheard straggling remarks, as the
worshippers passed out of the church, which led me to conclude that
some change was contemplated, and my suspicions were confirmed by the
rector proposing from the pulpit the erection of a new church edifice
in another part of the city, to be fashioned after a more modern
style of archit