"If we owned a spot of ground, I would be willing to go on it and engage as much of my time as possible in cultivating and improving it.
"Lastly, I do not know what effect the advice and influence of the
Catholic Church may have upon my mind, and do have a slight hope that
I may find the exact remedy that I need in my union with her.
"I feel the assurance that if I follow the Spirit of God, and place all my confidence in it, it will do for me what I dare not hope to do for myself."
A day or two later he jots down, casually as it were, one of those profound observations which are like pointers to his whole career. Occurring at this early period, when, as the reader may see hereafter, the germs of all his later thought and work were beginning to unfold, they are like rifts in the darkness which seemed to himself to lie about his future, and show plainly to the student of his life how straight and secure his path was amidst it all. He had been counselling himself to patience and entire reliance upon God's providence while waiting the opportunity "to create or procure the circumstances" necessary to the expression of his own individuality. He felt that this was the especial task to which all men were called. To use his own words:
"It is for this we are created; that we may give a new and individual expression of the absolute in our own peculiar character. As soon as the new is but the re-expression of the old, God ceases to live. Ever the mystery is revealed in each new birth. So must it be to eternity. The Eternal-Absolute is ever creating new forms of expressing itself."
In the next chapter we shall have occasion to give Father Hecker's choice of an epitaph for Dr. Brownson. We think that the sentences just quoted are worthy to be his own.
In the middle of July Bishop McCloskey returned to New York, and Isaac waited upon him without delay. Their first long conversation made it plain to the bishop that the young man had very little need of further preliminary instruction, and it was settled that conditional baptism should be administered to him within a fortnight. That the nature of Isaac Hecker's vocation also revealed itself to this prudent adviser is also evident from this entry, made in the diary as soon as the visit was ended:
"He said that my life would lead me to contemplation, and that in this country the Church was so situated as to require them all to be active. I did not speak further on this subject with him. He asked whether I felt like devoting myself to the order of the priesthood, and undergoing their discipline, self-denial, etc., and becoming a missionary. I answered that all I could say was that I wished to live the life given me, and felt like sacrificing all things to this; but could not say that the priesthood would be the proper place for me.
"I feel that if, for a certain length of time, and under the discipline of the Church, I could have the conditions for leading the life of contemplation, it would be what the Spirit now demands. Whether I shall not be compelled back to this if I attempt to follow some other way, I am not perfectly sure. The bishop intimated that in Europe there were brotherhoods congenial to the state of mind that I am in. If so, and I could remain there for a certain length of time, why should I not go? I will inquire further about it when next I speak with the bishop.
"There is a college at Fordham where there is to be a commencement to-morrow, which the bishop invited me to go and see. Perhaps I shall find this place to be suitable, and may be led to examine and try it. The Lord knows all; into His hands I resign myself."