Again, on December 5:
"Your repeated assurances of being united with me in our future fills me with consolation and courage. We may well repeat the American motto, 'United we stand, divided we fall.' Never did I find myself more sustained by the grace of God. How often I have heard repeated by acquaintances I have made here: 'Why, Father Hecker, you are the happiest man in Rome!' Little do they know how many sleepless nights I have passed, how deeply I have suffered within three months. But isn't Almighty God good? It seems I never knew or felt before what it is to be wholly devoted to Him."
On December 9, after a long exposition of the need of a new religious missionary institute for America:
"Considering our past training, and many other advantages which we possess, I cannot but believe that God will use us, provided that we remain faithful to Him, united together as one man, and ready to make any sacrifice for some such holy enterprise; and my daily prayer is that the Holy Father may receive a special grace and inspiration to welcome and bless such a proposition."
With his Christmas greetings he wrote: "From the start I have not suffered myself to repose a moment when there was anything to be done which promised help. Whatever may be the result of our affairs, this consolation will be with me—I did my utmost, and everything just and honorable, to deserve success. No one would believe how much I have gone through at Rome, but I do it cheerfully, and sometimes gaily, because I know it is the will of God."
On February 19, 1858: "The experience I have made here is worth more than my weight in gold. If God intends to employ us in any important work in the future, such an experience was absolutely necessary for us. It is a novitiate on a large scale. I cannot thank God sufficiently for my having made it thus far without incurring by my conduct the displeasure or censure of any one."
And a week afterwards: "You should write often, for words of sympathy, hope, encouragement are much to me now in these trials, difficulties, and conflicts. In all my Catholic life I have not experienced oppression and anxiety of mind in such a degree as I have for these ten days past."
March 6: "So far from my devotion to religion being diminished by recent events, it has, thank God, greatly increased; but many other things have been changed in me. On many new points my intelligence has been awakened; experience has dispelled much ignorance, and on the whole I hope that my faith and heart have been more purified. If God spares my life to return, I hope to come back more a man, a better Catholic, and more entirely devoted to the work of God."
The following is from a copy of a letter to Father de Held dated November 2: "One thing my trials have taught me, and this is the one thing important—to love God more. It almost seems that I did not know before what it is to love Him."
When it became evident that the Holy See would decide the case so as to make it necessary for the Fathers to form a new society, Father Hecker did not accept even this as a final indication of Providence that external circumstances had made it possible for him to realize his long-cherished dreams of an American apostolate; for he was at liberty still to refuse. He redoubled his prayers. His pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Alphonsus is already known to the reader; he caused a novena of Masses to be said at the altar of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the Redemptorist Church in Rome; he said Mass himself at all the great shrines, especially the Confession of St. Peter, the altar of St. Ignatius and that of St. Philip Neri; he earnestly entreated all his friends, old ones at home and new-found ones in Rome, to join with him in his prayers for light.