ontroversy foreign to his
genius, and one which had not brought him into the Church, and
perhaps could not have done so."

The memoranda contain a more familiar account of this interview:

"I presented myself for instruction and reception into the Church at
the episcopal residence, and was received by the old bishop, Fenwick.
He questioned me on the essential doctrines and found me as I was;
that is, firm as a rock and perfectly clear in my belief. Then he
said, 'You had better see Bishop John.' I did so. He tried to get me
started on questions of modern theology such as he suspected I might
be (as he would doubtless think, knowing my antecedents) unsound on;
for example, rights of property, etc. I refused to speak my
sentiments on them. I said I had no difficulties about anything to
submit to him. I knew the Catholic faith and wished to be received
into the Church at once. I had come seeking the means to save my
soul, and I wanted nothing from him but to be prepared for baptism."

More interesting than either of these narrations is the following
conversation, recorded on July 4, 1884. Besides furnishing a very
explicit answer to a question which may occur to some minds, as to
why a man who always took such a hopeful view of human nature as
Isaac Hecker did, should not have been repelled from Catholicity by
the doctrine of original sin, it adds some further particulars to the
meagre array of facts in our possession:

"Suppose," he was asked, "that the deliverances of the Council of
Trent on original sin, and the theories of Bellarmine on that
doctrine, had been offered you during your transition period: what
would you have thought of them?"

"I would have received them readily enough. Why, the book I took to
Concord to study was the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which has
the strongest kind of statement of that doctrine. Bellarmine's
formula of _nudus_ and _nudatus_ would have opened my eyes amazingly
to a solution of the whole difficulty."*

[* Reference is here made to a very famous saying of Bellarmine's in
explanation of a prevalent teaching on original sin. According to
that teaching, if Adam had been originally constituted in a state of
pure nature, devoid of supernatural gifts and graces, his spiritual
condition might be described as naked--_nudus._ On the other hand,
man as now born is _nudatus,_ stripped of those gifts and graces,
suffering the penal privation of them on account of Adam's sin.

"T