ks, but also the more sad and weary. He was always
careful to express thanks for favors, small or great. The following
is from a letter to a friend:

"Your last note contained at the end a kind invitation. Don't be
troubled; I'm not coming! Do you know that sometimes I am tempted to
think that I am necessary? Sometimes the thought has come to me that
I might run away from home a week or so. Then I have driven the
thought away as I would a temptation. But I wished to thank you none
the less for your invitation, though I should never see you again. _I
have an uncontrollable horror of ingratitude."_

During his long years of illness Father Hecker's reading continued
upon the lines he had ever followed, the Scriptures holding, of
course, the first place. Besides reading or having read to him
certain parts adapted to the spiritual probation he was undergoing,
such as Job, the Passion of our Lord, and chapters of the sapiential
books, he also took the entire Scriptures in course, going slowly
through them from cover to cover and insisting on every word being
read, genealogies and all. He would sometimes interrupt the reader to
make comments and ask questions. The last words that he listened to
at night were the words of Scripture, read to him after he had got
into bed. He declared that they soothed him and settled his mind and
calmed its disturbance, and this was easily seen by his looks and
manner. Some who knew him well thought from his comments that God
gave him infused knowledge of a rare order about the sense of
Scripture. Once he said:

"When you were reading Ezechiel last night, oh, you cannot understand
what thoughts I had! During the past six months I have learned how to
understand him. I say within myself: 'O Ezechiel! Ezechiel! no one
understands, no one understands you in this world, except one here
and there.'"

Next to Scripture came St. Thomas and St. John of the Cross, the one
for dogmatic and philosophical, the other for devotional uses. It
must have been soon after returning to America as a Redemptorist that
he procured a copy of Alagona's Compendium of St. Thomas, submitted
it to Bishop Neumann, whose learning was in high repute, and obtained
his assurance of its accuracy. That little book is a curiosity of
underlining and various other forms of emphasizing. It was with him
till death. From it he referred to the full works of St. Thomas for
complete statements, but he loved to ponder the brief summary