4.--In silence, suffering without murmuring. An
eternal thirst, enduring without being quenched. Infinite longings
without being met. Heart ever burning, never refreshed. Void within
and mystery all around. Ever escaping that which we would reach.
Tortured incessantly without relief. Alone--bereft of God, angels,
men--all. Hopes gone, fears vanished, and love dead within. These,
and more than these, must man suffer."

"August 28, 1844.--Is it not because I have been too much engaged in
reading and paid too little attention to the centre that I have lost
myself, as it were? My position here distracts my attention and I
lose the delight, intimate knowledge, and sweet consciousness of my
interior life. How can this be remedied? I am constantly called of to
matters in which I have no relish; and if I retreat for a short time,
they rest on me like a load, so that I cannot call myself free at any
moment. I see the case as it stands, and feel I am losing my interior
life from the false position in which I am placed.

"The human ties and the material conditions in which I am should
unquestionably be sacrificed to the divine interior relation to the
One, the Love-Spirit, which, alas! I have so sensibly felt. Can a man
live in the world and follow Christ? I know not; but, as for me, I
find it impossible. I feel more and more the necessity of leaving the
society and the distracting cares of a city business for a silent and
peaceful retreat, to the end that I may restore the life I fear I am
losing. Our natural interests should be subject to our human ties;
our human ties to our spiritual relations; and who is he who brings
all these into divine harmony?

"How shall I make the sacrifice which shall accomplish the sole end I
have, and should have, in view? Thrice have I left home for this
purpose, and each time have returned unavoidably so, at least, it
seems to me. Once more, I trust, will prove a permanent and immovable
trial."

To some, a most striking incidental proof of his inaptitude for the
ordinary layman's life, is found in the subjoined extract from the
memoranda. Speaking of this period, Father Hecker said:

"Some time after my reception into the Church, I went to Bishop
McCloskey and told him I had scruples against renting a seat in the
Cathedral in Mott Street. 'If I do,' I said, 'I shall feel sore at
the thought that I have set apart for me in the house of God a seat
which a poor man cannot use.' I told him that