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THE LIFE OF FATHER HECKER
THE LIFE OF FATHER HECKER
BY REV. WALTER ELLIOTT ________________________ NEW YORK: THE COLUMBUS PRESS 1891 ________________________ Nihil obstat: AUGUSTINUS F. HEWIT, Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur: M. A. CORRIGAN, Archiepiscopus Neo-Ebor. ________________________ THE reader must indulge me with what I cannot help saying, that I have felt the joy of a son in telling the achievements and chronicling the virtues of Father Hecker. I loved him with the sacred fire of holy kinship, and love him still—only the more that lapse o
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
BY MOST REV. JOHN IRELAND, D.D., Archbishop of St. Paul. LIFE is action, and so long as there is action there is life. That life is worth living whose action puts forth noble aspirations and good deeds. The man's influence for truth and virtue persevering in activity, his life has not ceased, though earth has clasped his body in its embrace. It is well that it is so. The years of usefulness between the cradle and the grave are few. The shortness of a life restricted to them is sufficient to disc
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
TOWARDS the close of the eighteenth century a German clockmaker named Engel Freund, accompanied by his wife and children, left his native town of Elberfeld, in Rhenish Prussia, to seek a new home in America. There is a family tradition to the effect that his forefathers were French, and that they came into Germany on account of some internal commotion in their own country. The name makes it more probable that they were Alsatians who quietly moved across the Rhine, either when their province was
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
It has been said already, in speaking of Father Hecker's childhood, that he had been consciously under the influence of supernatural impressions from a very early period. It seems probable, therefore, that at least during the few years which preceded his juvenile plunge into politics he must have been devout and prayerful, though doubtless in his own spontaneous way. Such were his mother's characteristics, and we find her son writing to her, when his aspirations after the perfect life had led hi
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
A BRIEF consideration at this point of a certain permanent tendency of Father Hecker's mind will be of present and future value to the student of his life. It has been said already that he never changed the principles he had adopted as a lad among the apprentices and journeymen of New York; principles which, for all social politics, he summarized in the homely expression, "I am always for the under dog." Thus, in the article quoted in the preceding chapter, he had the right to say of himself and
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
THE earliest of the letters so fortunately preserved by the affection of Isaac Hecker's kindred is addressed to his mother, from Chelsea, and bears date December 24, 1842. After giving some details of his arrival, and of the kindly manner in which he had been received, he writes:* [* We have corrected some slight errors of orthography and punctuation in these early letters. They were of the sort to be expected from a self-trained youth, as yet little used to the written expression of his thought
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
THE famous though short-lived community at West Roxbury, Massachusetts, where Isaac Hecker made his first trial of the common life, was started in the spring of 1841 by George Ripley and his wife, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John S. Dwight, George P. Bradford, Sarah Sterns, a niece of George Ripley's, Marianne Ripley, his sister, and four or five others whose names we do not know. In September of the same year they were joined by Charles A. Dana, now of the New York Sun. Hawthorne's residence at the Fa
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CHAPTER of the present biography. On its second page occurs the following account of his impressions while in church on Easter Sunday:
CHAPTER of the present biography. On its second page occurs the following account of his impressions while in church on Easter Sunday:
"Monday, April 17, 1843.—Yesterday I went to the Catholic church at West Roxbury. It was Easter Sunday. The services were, to me, very impressively affecting. The altar-piece represented Christ's rising from the tomb, and this was the subject-matter of the priest's sermon. In the midst of it he turned and pointed to the painting, with a few touching words. All eyes followed his, which made his remarks doubly affecting. How inspiring it must be to the priest, when he is preaching, to see around h
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
THE citations thus far made from Isaac Hecker's youthful diary, although penned at Brook Farm, bear few traces of that fact. They might have been written in a desert for all evidence they give of any special influence produced upon him by personal contact with others. It is not until the middle of May, 1843, that he begins to make any reference to his actual surroundings. Before following him into these more intimate self-confidences, and especially before giving in his own words an account of t
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
WHAT influenced Isaac Hecker to leave Brook Farm, a place so congenial in many ways to his natural dispositions, was, plainly enough, his tendency to seek a more ascetic and interior life than he could lead there. The step cost him much, but he had received all that the place and his companions could give him, and his departure was inevitable. His next move in pursuit if his ideal took him to Fruitlands. This was a farm, situated near Harvard, in Worcester Co., Massachusetts, which had been boug
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
NOT finding any solution of his spiritual difficulties at either Fruitlands or Brook Farm, Isaac Hecker turned his face once more toward the home from which he had departed nearly a year before. He expected little from this step, but his state of mind was now one in which he had begun to anticipate, at any turn, some light on the dispositions of Providence in his regard which might determine his course for good and all. And, meantime, as patient waiting was all that lay in his own power, it seem
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
IT was the middle of August, 1843, when Isaac Hecker once more took up his residence with his family in New York. His first endeavor was to sink back again as far as possible into the old routine of business. "To-morrow I commence to work," he writes on the evening of his return. "My interior state is quiet and peaceful. I have not met any one yet. My dear mother understands me better than any one else. How far business will interfere with my inner life remains to be seen. O Lord! help me to kee
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
THAT "movable feast," Thanksgiving Day, gave Isaac occasion for making this examination of conscience at five o'clock in the morning: "When I cast my eyes back, it seems to me that I have made some progress—that I have grown somewhat better than I was. Thoughts, feelings, and passions which were active in my bosom, and which, in truth, were not to be well-spoken of, have given place, I hope, to a better state of mind. "How am I now actualizing my spiritual life? It would be hard for me to answer
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
BEFORE summarizing and conveniently arranging Isaac Hecker's reasons for becoming a Catholic and narrating the accompanying incidents, we give the following profession of faith in the authority of the Spirit speaking within. It was written in the diary in the midst of his preparations for his baptism, and is an early witness of a permanent characteristic of Father Hecker's life. It is, besides, a fitting introduction to the description of his state of mind when he entered the Church, showing bet
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
HAD Protestantism possessed anything capable of attracting Isaac Hecker he would certainly have found it, for he made due and diligent search. He was, in a manner, bound to do so, for the atmosphere in which he had been born and nurtured had not yet cleared so fully that he could say to himself with positive assurance that there was no safe midway between no-belief and Catholicity. All the natural influences of his surroundings were such as to draw him to one or other of the Protestant denominat
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
"I HAVE been groping in darkness, seeking where Thou wast not, and I found Thee not. But, O Lord my God, Thou hast found me —leave me not." These words are part of a long prayer written by Isaac Hecker in his diary April 23, 1844, after his arrival at Concord, Mass. He appears to have gone directly there from Carlisle, Pa., where he had spent some days with the Rev. William Herbert Norris, whose published letter to "A Sincere Enquirer" had excited in the young man a hope that he might find in hi
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
THE first effect of Brownson's letter was to throw its recipient into a state of great though brief perplexity. That final struggle, strange and painful, in which the soul for the last time contends against its happiness; in which it is drawn by an invincible attraction, knowing that it will yield yet striving still to resist; is one that must remain but half-comprehended by most of those to whom Catholic truth is an inheritance. And yet there is an explanation which Father Hecker himself would
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
THE first Bishop of Boston, John Louis de Cheverus, who left that diocese to become successively the Bishop of Montauban and the Cardinal-Archbishop of Bordeaux, was, in the strictest sense, a missionary during his American episcopate. Thoroughly French in blood, in training, in manners, and in zeal, his penetrating intelligence not less than his saintly life and his tireless charity recommended him to men of all creeds and of none. His departure from Boston was regarded by all its citizens as a
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
FROM Worcester Isaac went on to New York, stopping on the way to make a brief visit to the Fourierite community in New Jersey, known as the North American Phalanx. He probably had some personal acquaintances there whom he hoped to inoculate with his newly-found certitude. He reached home June 20, 1844, and five days later presented his letter to Bishop McCloskey. Concerning the acquaintance then begun, which, on the bishop's part, soon took the form of a discerning and wise direction, and eventu
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
BISHOP McCLOSKEY, afterwards the first American Cardinal, was coadjutor to Bishop Hughes from 1844 to 1847. He was living at the old Cathedral when Isaac Hecker first called upon him. He was still a young man, less than ten years separating him from the youthful catechumen. In temperament they were very different. The bishop, a man of routine in method and of no original views of principles, was so, nevertheless, by mental predisposition rather than by positive choice. He was a man of finished e
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
"COULD I but give up all my time to contemplation, study, reading, and reflection!" Upon this aspiration as a background the whole matter of Isaac Hecker's vocation must be considered. In substance we have met with it very frequently already; in the shape just given it confronts us on the first page of the new diary begun a few days before his baptism. And as our reader accompanies us through the records he made during the year that still elapsed before he entered the Redemptorist Order, nothing
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
ISAAC HECKER'S zeal for social reform lent force to his strictly personal cravings for a more religious life; he longed for wider scope than individual effort could possibly bestow, and also for a supernatural point of vantage. "If we would do humanity any good," he writes in his diary while considering his vocation, "we must act from grounds higher than humanity; our standpoint must be above the race, otherwise how can we act upon humanity?" He also speaks of the fundamental necessity of "an im
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
THE Redemptorist novitiate at St. Trond, as well as the house of studies at Wittem, Holland, had been established be the immediate disciples of St. Clement Hofbauer. That great servant of God had introduced the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer into Austria and other parts of Germany several years before the time of which we write. A saint himself, and of wonderful missionary gifts, he was worthy of the title of second founder of the order of St. Alphonsus Liguori. St. Clement was the son o
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
THE day after the taking of the vows, Brothers Hecker and Walworth started by stage-coach for the house of studies, at Wittem in Dutch Limburg. The route lay nearly east through a country pleasant on account of the fertility of its soil and the industry of its inhabitants, and interesting from its churches, monasteries, and curious old villages. The travellers crossed the Meuse at Maestricht and reached their destination before nightfall. Wittem is a small town, thirty miles east of St. Trond an
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
"I WOULD not have become a priest had I lived in Europe, for I never had or could have any strong attrait for sacerdotal functions. But I felt that the Church in America was in need of all the help that could be given by her children for the work of the priesthood." Father Hecker said this when near his end, and a full knowledge of his character bore him out in it. The sacerdotal, the ecclesiastical, were qualities which he had assumed with full consciousness of their sanctity, yet they united w
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
THE events which led to the separation of the band of American missionaries from the Redemptorist community took place in the spring and summer of 1857. A misunderstanding arose about the founding of a new house in Newark, N.J., or in New York City, which should be the headquarters for the English-speaking Fathers and become the centre of attraction for American subjects, and in which English should be the language in common use. Application had been made by Bishop Bayley, and afterwards by Arch
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
DURING the seven months of Father Hecker's stay in Rome the band of American missionaries were busily occupied. Missions were given in the following order: Newark, N.J.; Poughkeepsie, Cold Spring on the Hudson, and Utica, N.Y.; Brandywine, Del.; Trenton, N.J.; Burlington, Brandon, East and West Rutland, Vt., and Plattsburgh, Saratoga, and Little Falls, N.Y. All these labors were undertaken subject to the authority of the Redemptorist Provincial and in a spirit of entire obedience. The mission at
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
THE beginnings of the Paulist community having been sketched, it is now in order to state the principles with which Father Hecker, guided no less by supernatural intuition than by enlightened reason, intended it should be inspired; and this shall be done as nearly as possible in his own words. The following sentences, found in one of his diaries and quoted some chapters back, embody what may be deemed his ultimate principle: "It is for this we are created: that we may give a new and individual e
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CHAPTER to fill a volume. Let us hope for its publication some day.
CHAPTER to fill a volume. Let us hope for its publication some day.
It need hardly be said that Father Hecker did not claim to have any new doctrine; there can be none, and he knew it well. Every generation since Christ has had His entire revelation. Development is the word which touches the outer margin of all possible adaptation of Christian principles to the changing conditions of humanity. But in the transmission of these principles from master to disciple, in practically assisting in their use by public instruction, or by private advice, or by choice of dev
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN serving the parish, the Paulists, led by Father Hecker, endeavored to utilize the individual qualities of each member, as well as the advantages of a community, so as to bring them to bear as distinct forces upon the people. What George Miles had said of them as missionaries, as quoted in a previous chapter, applied to them as parish priests, and told accordingly in result. Their personal excellences found free room for activity, without any lack of oneness of spirit and without interfering w
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
THE suspension of the missions, if it was the result of necessity, was yet an aid to Father Hecker in devoting himself to public speaking in the interests of the Catholic faith. Between missions, it is true, he seized every favorable opportunity to address audiences on controversial topics, often doing so in public halls, as well as in churches. Meantime he could still further mature his plans, and, testing his methods by experiment, secure for future occasions a course of lectures fully suited
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CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXX
ONE Sunday forenoon, happening to cross Broadway near a fashionable Protestant church, we saw the curb on both sides of the street lined with carriages, and the coachmen and footmen all reading the morning papers. The rich master and his family were in the softly-cushioned pews indoors, while their servants studied the news of the world and worshipped at the shrine of the Press outside: a spectacle suggestive of many things to the social reformer. But to a religious mind it was an invitation to
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CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXI
IN 1867 Father Hecker visited Europe in company with Father Hewit for the purpose of opening business relations between The Catholic Publication Society and English, Irish, and Continental publishers, as well as to attend the Catholic Congress of Malines held in the summer of that year. The latter purpose we the chief inducement for the journey. The Archbishop of New York favored the project of holding a Catholic Congress in America, and encouraged Father Hecker to study the proceedings at Malin
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CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXII
WE have now arrived at the last period of Father Hecker's life, the long illness which completed his meed of suffering and of merit, and gradually drew him down to the grave. It will not be expected that we shall treat extensively of this subject; nor can one who writes in the beginning of the '90s about the closing scenes of a life which ended late in the '80s go very much into detail without bringing in the living. As to Father Hecker's latter days in this world, it may be said that his joy an
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CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIII
WHILE in Europe God opened Father Hecker's soul to the cries of the nations. He was profoundly interested in the state of religion there, and the persecutions suffered by Catholics in Germany, in Switzerland, and in Italy during his stay, while it aroused his sympathies, increased his desire to find a remedy, and a fundamental one, for the evils from which the Church suffered. The peoples of the Old World, with their differing tendencies, were incessantly disputing in his mind. They were always
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CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXIV
"I LOOK back," wrote Father Hecker in the summer of 1879, "on these three years as one continuous and dreadful interior struggle." This shows that the shadows were too deep and broad for the intervals of peace, which we know from his letters he had now and then enjoyed, to banish the impression of constant gloom. And Father Hecker's readiness to return home upon positive request will be the better appreciated when we remember how very painful to him was the very thought of his past occupations.
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CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXV
FATHER HECKER'S prayer during all these years was a state of what seemed almost uninterrupted contemplation of varied intensity. He attended the evening meditation of the community as long as he had strength to do so, frequently giving a commentary on the points read out at the beginning, simple, direct, and fervent. He was exceedingly fond of assisting at High Mass on Sundays and feast days, and he had a small oratory built between the house and the new church, from which, by passing a few step
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APPENDIX
APPENDIX
________________________ THE ORATORY, BIRMINGHAM, February 28, 1889. MY DEAR FATHER HEWIT: I was very sorrowful at hearing of Father Hecker's death. I have ever felt that there was this sort of unity in our lives—that we had both begun a work of the same kind, he in America and I in England, and I know how zealous he was in promoting it. It is not many months since I received a vigorous and striking proof of it in the book he sent me [ The Church and the Age ]. Now I am left with one friend less
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RECOLLECTIONS OF FATHER HECKER BY THE ABBÉ XAVIER DUFRESNE, OF GENEVA
RECOLLECTIONS OF FATHER HECKER BY THE ABBÉ XAVIER DUFRESNE, OF GENEVA
I first knew Father Hecker in 1873, meeting him at a Catholic Congress held at Ferney and presided over by Monsignor Mermillod. Father Hecker visited Geneva several times after that, living in the closest intimacy with our family. He spent several weeks on a visit with my father, Dr. Dufresne, at a chalet situated on Salane mountain above Geneva, being at the time in feeble health and seeking recovery by a prolonged sojourn in Europe. For this enforced inactivity he recompensed himself by contin
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