"Thank God! He led me into the Catholic Church. If it hadn't been for that I should have been one of the worst cranks in the world."
Here are two expressions taken from the diary of a permanent fact of Father Hecker's individuality. They help to explain why he was misunderstood by many in later years:
"Men have fear to utter absurdities. The head is sceptical of the divine oracles of the heart, and before she utters them she clothes them in such a fantastic dress that men hear the words but lose the life, the thought."
"We often act to be understood by the heart, not by the head; and when the head speaks of its having understood, we deny its understanding. It is the secret sympathy of the heart which is the only response that is looked for. Speech is cold, profane."
This must recall, to those who were intimate with Father Hecker, how often he arrived at his own convictions by discussing them with others while they were yet but partially formed. It is a custom with many to do so, mind assisting mind, negation provoking affirmation, doubt vanishing with the utterance of the truth. In Father Hecker's case his perfect frankness led him, when among his own friends, to utter half-formed ideas, sometimes sounding startling and erroneous, but spoken with a view to get them into proper shape. At such times it required patience to know just what he meant, for he never found it the easiest to employ terms whose meaning was conventional.
By the first of September such faint hopes as Isaac had entertained of adapting himself to the conditions of his home in New York were well-nigh dissipated. But a certain natural timidity, joined with the still complete uncertainty he felt as to what his true course should be, made him dissemble his disquiet so long as it was bearable. After a month or two, by a mutual agreement between his brothers and himself which exonerated him from much of the manual labor which they still shared with the men in their employment, he devoted himself to an occupation more accordant to his mind. He set to work to make single beds and private rooms for the workmen, contriving various conveniences and means of occasional solitude for them, and in other ways doing all in his power to achieve for them the privileges he found so necessary for himself. Of these efforts we get occasional glimpses in the diary. But it is, in the main, devoted to more impersonal and larger topics, and the facts of his daily employment, as just given, have been gained from other sources.
"September 1.—There are two ways in which the spirit may live itself out. One is to leave all these conditions, purchase a spot of ground, and live according to its daily dictates. The other is to make these conditions as harmonic as possible by giving the men" (workmen) "an associative interest in the accumulations of our associative labor. Both extremes require renunciation of property and of self. Love, universal love is the ruler, and only by it can the spirit find peace or be crowned with the highest happiness."
"The mystery of man's being, the unawakened capacities in him, we are not half aware of. A few of the race, the prophets, sages, and poets, give us a glimpse of his high destiny. Alas! that men should be on the borders of such mighty truths and stand as blind and dumb as lower animals before them!"
"Balaam sometimes, but ignorantly, utters true prophecies. A remark I heard to-day leads me to say this. Speaking of diet a man said: 'Why, what do you intend? At last you will have men to live on God.' We must become God-like, or God-full. Live as He lives, become one with Him. Until we are reconciled with our Father we are aliens, prodigals. Until we can say, My Father and I are one, we have not commenced to be. We must fulfil what the Apostle said (and it means, perhaps, more than we commonly imagine): 'In God we live and move and have our being.'"
"The deeper and more profound a truth is, the less proof can you give in its support."