men then living, and their type
was too familiar to be successfully counterfeited. Father Hecker was
so plainly a great man of that type, so evidently an outgrowth of our
institutions, that he stamped American on every Catholic argument he
proposed. Nor was the force of this peculiar impression lessened by
the whispered grumblings of a few petty minds among Catholics
themselves, to whom this apostolic trait was cause for suspicion.
Never was a man more Catholic than Father Hecker, simply, calmly,
joyfully, entirely Catholic. What better proof of this than the rage
into which his lectures and writings threw the outright enemies of
the Church? Grave ministers lost their balance and foamed at him as a
trickster and a hypocrite, all the worse because double-dyed with
pretence of love of country.

For the Protestant pulpits felt the shock and stormed in unison
against this new exposition of Catholicity and against its
representative. In some cases, not content with one onslaught, they
returned to the charge Sunday after Sunday. All this was not
unexpected. The secular press, however, were very generally favorable
in their notices, excepting some of the Boston dailies. As a rule,
the lectures were very fully reported and sometimes appeared word for
word.

To reply to one's assailants after one has left the field of battle
is no easy matter, and for the most part Father Hecker trusted for
this to local champions of Catholicity; and not in vain. But it
happened on one occasion that after he had lectured in a large town
in Michigan, and had journeyed on to fulfil engagements farther West,
he was attacked in a public hall by a minister of the place. On his
return East Father Hecker stopped over and gave another lecture in
the town, and not only refuted the minister but covered him with
ridicule. In fact there was no great need of defence of Father
Hecker's arguments, they were so simply true and so readily
understood. Not one of his antagonists compared well with him for
frankness, good humor, courtesy; and they almost invariably shirked
the issue and confined themselves to stale calumnies against the
Church.

At Ann Arbor, Michigan, Father Hecker lectured in the Methodist
meeting-house, then the largest hall in the town. The Michigan State
University, at this town, had at the time about seven hundred
students, nearly all of whom came to the lecture. The subject chosen
was _Luther and the Reformation._ As it was announced,