tifies the action of Father Hecker
and his companions.

As soon as the church in Fifty-ninth Street was opened the community
exerted itself to make the surroundings attractive. The building
occupied but a small part of the property, the rest of which was laid
out in grass-plats and gravel walks; many shade-trees and some
fruit-trees were set out, and a flower and vegetable garden planted.
It was Father Hecker's delight to superintend this work, and to
participate actively in it when his duties allowed. The grounds soon
became an attractive spot, to which in a few years church-goers from
all parts of the city began to make Sunday pilgrimages. They came in
considerable numbers every Sunday to assist at Mass or Vespers in St.
Paul's quiet, country-like church. Meantime the residents of the
parish, not very numerous and nearly all of the laboring class,
formed deep attachments for their pastors, and an almost ideal state
of unity and affection bound priests and people together.

Nearly the entire region was covered with market gardens, varied with
huge masses of rock, and groups of shanties. Very many of the
parishioners of that early period lived in these nondescript
dwellings, of which they were themselves both the architects and
builders, a fact which added not a little to their quaint and
picturesque appearance. The sites upon which these "squatters'" homes
were placed, and over which roamed and sported their mingled goats,
dogs, and children, are now occupied in great part by blocks of
stately residences and apartment houses; but we know not whether the
grace of God abounds more plentifully now than it did then. At any
rate, whoever heard Father Hecker in those primitive days call his
parish "Shantyopolis," could see no sign of regret on his part that
he had a poor and simple people as the bulk of his parishioners.

Much attention was given to the preparation and preaching of sermons,
with the result of a full attendance at High Mass on Sundays.
Beginning with 1861, a volume of these discourses was published under
Father Hecker's direction each year, till a series of seven volumes
had been completed. These were very well received by the Catholic
public, and were bought in considerable numbers by non-Catholic
clergymen. They had an extensive sale, though when their publication
was first proposed it was feared that they would not succeed. They
are almost wholly of a strictly parochial character, brief, direct in
styl