Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

This last event occurred in St. Patrick's Church, Norfolk, Va., in April, 1896, and is thus mentioned by Father Hewit in the record of the mission: "Father Hecker closed with an extremely eloquent and popular lecture on 'Popular Objections to Catholicity.'"

The Questions of the Soul was well named, for it undertakes to show how the cravings of man for divine union may be satisfied. It does this by discussing the problem of human destiny, affirming the need of God for the soul's light and for its virtue, proving this by arguments drawn from the instincts, faculties, and achievements of man. The sense of want in man is the universal argument for his need of more than human fruition, and in the moral order is the irrefragable proof of both his own dignity and his incapacity to make himself worthy of it. Father Hecker urged in this book that man is born to be more than equal to himself—an evident proof of the need of a superhuman or supernatural religion. Eleven chapters, making one-third of the volume, are devoted to showing this, and include the author's own itinerarium from his first consciousness of the supreme question of the soul until its final answer in the Catholic Church, embracing short accounts of the Brook Farm and Fruitlands communities, and mention of other such abortive attempts at solution. Three chapters then affirm and briefly develop the claim of Christ to be the entire fulfilment of the soul's need for God, with the Catholic Church as his chosen means and instrument. These are entitled respectively, "The Model Man," "The Model Life," and "The Idea of the Church." Three more chapters discuss Protestantism, stating its commonest doctrines and citing its most competent witnesses in proof of its total and often admitted inadequacy to lead man to his destiny. Bringing the reader back to the Church, the fourteen last chapters fully develop her claims, dealing mostly with known facts and public institutions, and citing largely the testimony of non-Catholic writers.

It is something like the inductive method to infer the existence of a God from that of an admitted appetite, as also to learn the kind of food from the nature of the organs provided by nature for its reception and digestion. So the longings of man's moral nature, Father Hecker felt, when fairly understood, must lead to the knowledge of what he wants for their satisfaction—the Infinite Good—and that by a process of reasoning something equivalent to the scientific. Such is the statement of his case, embracing with its argument the introductory chapters. The inquiry then extends to the claimants in the religious world, not simply as to which is biblically authentic or historically so, but rather as to which religion claims to satisfy the entire human want of God and makes the claim good as an actual fact. It is wonderful how this line of argument simplifies controversy, and no less wonderful to find how easily the victory is won by the Catholic claim. The reader will also notice how consistent all this is with Father Hecker's own experience from the beginning.

The literary faults of the book are not a few; for if the argument is compact, its details seem to have been hastily snatched up and put together, or perhaps the occupations of the missions prevented revision and consultation. There is a large surplusage of quotations from poets, many of them obscure, and worthy of praise rather as didactic writers than as poets; yet every word quoted bears on the point under discussion. To one who has labored in preparing sermons, each chapter looks like the cullings of the preacher's commonplace book set in order for memorizing; and very many sentences are rhetorically faulty. But, in spite of all these defects, the book is a powerful one, and nothing is found to hurt clearness or strength of expression. What we have criticised are only bits of bark left clinging to the close-jointed but rough-hewn frame-work.

The Questions of the Soul was got out by the Appletons, and was at the time of its publication a great success, and still remains so. The reason is because the author takes nothing for granted, propounds difficulties common to all non-Catholics, sceptics as well as professing Protestants, and offers solutions verifiable by inspection of every-day Catholicity and by evidences right at hand. Catholicity is the true religion, because it alone unites men to God in the fulness of union, supernatural and integral in inner and outer life—a union demanded by the most resistless cravings of human nature: such is the thesis. There can be little doubt that prior to this book there was nothing like its argument current in English literature; a short and extremely instructive account by Frederick Lucas of his conversion from Quakerism is the only exception known to us, and that but partially resembles it, is quite brief, and has long since gone out of print.

The Aspirations of Nature deals with intellectual difficulties in the same manner as the Questions of the Soul does with the moral ones. The greatest possible emphasis is laid upon the two-fold truth that man's intellectual nature is infallible in its rightful domain, and that that domain is too narrow for its own activity. The validity of human reason as far as it goes, and its failure to go far enough for man's intellectual needs, are the two theses of the book. They are well and thoroughly proved; and no one can deny the urgent need of discussing them: the dignity of human nature and the necessity of revelation. Like Father Hecker's first book, the Aspirations of Nature is good for all non-Catholics, because in proving the dignity of man's reason Protestants are brought face to face with their fundamental error of total depravity; enough for their case surely. If they take refuge in the mitigations of modern Protestant beliefs, they nearly always go to the extreme of asserting the entire sufficiency of the human intellect, and are here met by the argument for the necessity of revelation.

An extremely valuable collection of the confessions of heathen and infidel philosophers as to the insufficiency of reason is found in this book, as well as a full set of quotations from Protestant representative authorities on the subject of total depravity. Over against these the Catholic doctrine of reason and revelation is brought out clearly. The study of the book would be a valuable preparation for the exposition of the claims of the Catholic Church to be the religion of humanity, natural and regenerate—the intellectual religion.

As might be expected from one who had such an aversion for Calvinism, the view of human nature taken by the author is what some would call optimistic, and the tone with regard to the religious honesty of non-Catholic Americans extremely hopeful. Perhaps herein was Dr. Brownson's reason for an adverse, or almost adverse, criticism on the book in his Review. He had given the Questions of the Soul a thoroughly flattering reception, and now says many things in praise of the Aspirations of Nature, praising especially the chapter on individuality. But yet he dreads that the book will be misunderstood; he has no such lively hopes as the author; he trusts he is not running along with the eccentricities of theologians rather than with their common teaching; fears that he takes the possible powers of nature and such as are rarely seen in actual life as the common rule; dreads, again, that Transcendentalists will be encouraged by it; and more to the same effect. But Father Hecker, before leaving for Europe in 1857, had submitted the manuscript to Archbishop Kenrick and received his approval; nor did Brownson's unfavorable notice ruffle the ancient friendship between them.

The Aspirations of Nature was put through the press by George Ripley, at that time literary editor of the New York Tribune, Father Hecker having gone to Rome on the mission which ended in the establishment of his new community. Mr. McMaster had assisted him similarly with the Questions of the Soul. The second book sold well, as the first had done, and has had several editions. It is not so hot and eager in spirit as the Questions of the Soul, but it presses its arguments earnestly enough on the reader's attention. It is free from the literary faults named in connection with its predecessor, reads smoothly, and has very many powerful passages and some eloquent ones.

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