Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

As may be supposed, his visits to Third Street became frequent, and his acquaintance with the Fathers better established. This was especially true with regard to Father Rumpler, who was rector of the house, a learned and able man and one of mature spirituality. He was a German born and bred, with the hard ideas of discipline peculiar to a class of his countrymen though foreign to the genuine German character. He impressed young Hecker as a sedate man, wise and firm. The friendship then begun was maintained until Father Rumpler was deprived of his reason by an attack of acute mania several years later. But more than the friendship of Rumpler, as far as immediate results were concerned, was the providential circumstance of two other young Americans having applied to join the Redemptorists. To Isaac this was a stimulant of no ordinary power. Like himself, they were converts and very fervent ones; but, unlike him, they had come into the Church from Episcopalianism. Clarence A. Walworth, son of the Chancellor of the State of New York, was a graduate of Union College. He studied law in Albany and practised his profession for a short time, but finally undertook the ministry. After three years in the Episcopal seminary he became a Catholic. Those who know him now can see the tall and graceful youth, pleasing and kindly, with the face and voice and soul of an orator; for the force and charm of youth have not been weakened in receiving the dignity of old age.

James A. McMaster was of Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish parentage. His name is familiar to our readers as editor of the Freeman's Journal. Those qualities of aggressive zeal which made McMaster so well known to Catholics of our day were not wholly undeveloped in the tall, angular youth, still a catechumen, and intoxicated with the new wine of Catholic fervor. Young Mr. Walworth had been made a Catholic but a short time before, and McMaster was received into the Church by the Redemptorists in Third Street, his two young friends being present. While he was kneeling at the altar, candle in hand, piously reading his profession of faith to Father Rumpler, he accidentally set fire to Father Tschenhens' hair, one of the fathers assisting at the ceremony. Walking together afterwards in the little garden of the convent, Father Rumpler said to him: "Mr. McMaster, you begin well—setting fire to a priest." "Oh," answered he, "if I don't set fire to something more than that it will be a pity." These new friends of Isaac had applied to enter the Redemptorist novitiate and they had been accepted. This meant a voyage to Europe, for the congregation had not yet established a novitiate in America.

One Friday, then, during the last days of July—the exact date we have not been able to discover—Isaac Hecker was informed by Father Rumpler that Walworth and McMaster would sail for Belgium the evening of the next day. "I decided to join them," he said when relating the circumstances afterwards. "Father Rumpler was favorable, but puzzled. And I must first present myself to the Provincial, Father de Held, who was in Baltimore. I arrived in Baltimore at four o'clock in the morning on Saturday, travelling all night. Father de Held looked at me, as I presented myself, and said that he must take time to consider. I explained about the departure of the others that day. He ordered Brother Michael to get me a bowl of coffee from the kitchen, and me to hear his Mass. I heard the Mass and after that he examined me a little—asked me to read out of the Following of Christ in Latin, which I did. He gave me my acceptance, and I rushed back to New York by the half-past eight o'clock morning train. George had packed my trunk, and I sailed that day with the others."

The picturesqueness of the group was certainly not lessened by the accession of Isaac Hecker, whose leap to and from Baltimore, though hardly to be expected from a contemplative, was in accord with the sudden energy of his nature. One who saw him at the time says that "he had the general make-up of a transcendentalist, not excepting his long hair flowing down on his neck."

The ship was an American one named the Argo, and she was bound for London. The voyage was every way pleasant, lasting but twenty-five days from land to land, with bright skies, quiet sea, and fair winds. Their berths were in the waist of the ship, in the second cabin, all the places in the first cabin having been taken; this pleased them well, for they loved the poor man's lot. Isaac's passage money was paid by his brothers, and he was supplied by them and his mother with all sorts of conveniences; and these, of course, he made to conduce to the comfort of the entire party. The lower and larger berth of their little state-room was occupied by Walworth and McMaster, and Isaac took the upper and smaller one. None of them suffered from sea-sickness.

The young pilgrims were overflowing with happiness, as if they were going to the enjoyment of a rich heritage, as, indeed, in a spiritual sense they were. It was a first voyage to the Old World for all of them and they found everything interesting. They made friends with the crew, who were nearly all Yankee sailors, and who struck them as exactly like themselves, except that they were not religious; and they sought entertainment with such of the passengers as were congenial, though in this Isaac Hecker was more ready than his companions. Father Walworth tells an incident characteristic of both himself and his transcendental companion. He was admonishing young Hecker to be more reticent among the crew and was asked why. "You wouldn't like to kneel down and kiss the deck before all those sailors," said Walworth. "Why not?" was the reply. "Then do it." And down dropped Hecker to the deck and kissed it in all simplicity.

They had many topics of interest to occupy their time; Isaac favored such as were philosophical and social, his companions were absorbed by the Tractarian movement, its phases of thought and variety of persons, and all must have had much to tell of friends and relatives whom they hoped soon to see members of the Church. One night the harmony with their fellow-passengers was threatened with rupture. They were much annoyed by a violent dispute about the Trinity carried on in the adjoining cabin far into the night. McMaster finally lost patience, sprang out of bed, rushed among the disputants, and smote the table with a tremendous blow and shouted "Silence!" His remedy was efficacious; the theologians scattered and went to bed.

There was a marked difference between Isaac and his companions in controversial views. All three used their reason with the utmost activity, but he had travelled into the Church by the road of philosophy and they by that of history and Scripture. Their conversation must have been the exchange of intellectual commodities of very different kinds and for that reason expediting a busy commerce. They could profit by his bold and original views of principle and he was in need of their idea of the external integrity of organized religion. Then, too, they had much to say of the future, chiefly by way of conjecture, for no member of the order accompanied them. No one was superior and no superior was needed. As to devotional exercises each suited himself, kneeling down and saying his prayers night and morning and at other times, in his own way and words.

There was also difference in matters of devotion, for Isaac Hecker had little or no religious training, and as to the traditional forms of religious practice he was very backward. The others had long since familiarized themselves with all Catholic usages. Young Walworth taught young Hecker how to say the rosary and initiated him, doubtless, into other common practices, which he assumed with the simplicity and docility of the child of guileless nature that he was.

The ship, as we have said, was bound to London, but our party were too impatient to wait till the end of the voyage and left her at Portsmouth in the pilot's boat; the sea was running high, but so were their spirits, and although the boat was tossed about in a way to scare a landsman, they gladly went ashore and took the cars to London. We have before us a letter from Isaac Hecker to his brothers, dated the 29th of August, saying that they had been in London three days after a pleasant voyage, and expressing deep joy at nearing the place of retirement and prayer for which he had been longing. He asks them to write to Brownson and especially to assure his mother of his happiness.