"He says: I am all. Ask of me and I will give you more than has been written—more than you can ever find or dig out by study.
"Be my spokesman—this is your office. Submit to me—this is your glory. I have taken up my abode in you on condition that you will be faithful and submissive.
"You have no business to ask of me what I am going to set you about.
I am, and you know it—and this is enough for you to know.
"This is my condition of remaining with you—that you entertain me, and me alone, and no other on any pretext whatsoever. I am all, and this suffices. You have nothing to say, to do, or to be troubled about. Do only as I bid you, follow what I tell you, and be still.
"If you neglect me in any way, or forget me for any other object, now that you have enjoyed my confidence, love, and blessing, I will not abide with you any longer.
"I want all your time and to speak all that is to be said. You have no right to speak a word—not a word—of your own. You are not your own. You have given yourself up to me, and I am all. I will not leave you unless you leave me first, and even then I shall ever be the nearest to you, but you will not know it.
"I am your Friend; the One who loves you. I have discovered myself to you and will do so yet more. But the condition of so doing requires from you even more faith, tenderness, and submissiveness.
"Nothing is so real, so near, so full of enjoyment as I am to you, and you cannot leave me without giving up the greater for the less.
"I talk to you at all times and am near you at all seasons, and my joy is to be in your presence, to love you and to take delight in this love I bestow upon you. I direct your pen, speech, thought, and affections, though you know it not sensibly. But you shall know more clearly who I am, and all respecting me, if you but comply with my requirements. You need not fear: you cannot make any mistakes if you submit to be guided by me."
Isaac Hecker had now tried every form of philosophy. Whoever sailed with Brownson on that voyage which ended on the shores of Catholic truth, had explored the deep seas and sounded the shoal waters of all human reason; and young Hecker had been Brownson's friend and sympathizer since the years of his own earliest mental activity. Pantheism, subjectivism, idealism, and all the other systems were tried, and when at last he was convinced that Life is Real it was only after such an agony as must attend the imminent danger of fatal shipwreck.