INNER LIFE WHILE AT BROOK FARM
THE private journals from which we are about to quote so largely were
an unhoped-for addition to the stock of materials available for
Father Hecker's biography. Until after his death not even their
existence, still less the nature of their contents, was suspected.
With the exception of two important documents, one written while he
was in Belgium, in obedience to the requirements of his director; the
other in Rome, for the consideration of the four venerable religious
whose advice he sought before founding his community, no records of
his interior life have been discovered which are at all comparable in
fulness to those made during the eighteen months which preceded his
admission to the Church. In his years of health and strength he lived
and worked for others; and in those weary ones of illness which
followed them, he thought and wrote and suffered, but apparently
without making any deliberate notes of his deeper personal experience.
On those of our readers whose acquaintance with Father Hecker dates,
as our own does, from his intensely active and laborious prime, these
revelations of the period when he was being passively wrought upon
and shaped for his work by the hand of God, may produce an effect not
unlike that we have been conscious of in studying the greater mass
from which our extracts are taken. They will, perhaps, be struck, in
the first place, by the unexpectedly strong witness they bear to the
wholly interior and mystical experience of the man. They testify,
moreover, to the real and objective character of that leading which
he was constrained to follow; and not only that. They do so in a way
which furnishes a convincing reply to a very plausible doubt as to
whether the narrow and uncongenial surroundings of his early life
might not, by themselves, be sufficient to explain the discontent of
a poetic and aspiring nature such as his.
He was at Brook Farm when that community was at its pleasantest. The
shadow of care and the premonition of failure were, indeed, already
looming up before those who bore the chief responsibilities of the
undertaking, but the group by virtue of whose presence it became
famous had hardly begun to dwindle. And besides those whose names
have since become well known, there were others, young, gay,
intelligent, and well bred, acquaintance and familiarity with whom
were in many ways attractive to a susceptible youth like Isaac
Hecker. What impression he made upon the circle he entered, how
cordially he was received and held in high esteem, our readers
already know. And if he gave pleasure, he received it also. At first
the new circumstances were a little strange and embarrassing to him.
After a fortnight, or thereabouts, we find him noting that he is "not
one of their spirits. They say 'Mr. Hecker' in a tone they do not use
in speaking to each other." But the strangeness soon wore off and he
yielded to the influence of the place with a wholeness which would
have been entire but for the stronger drawing which never let him
free.
On this point, too, the witness of the journal is peremptory. So it
is as to the unity and consistence of his interior experiences from
first to last. Child, and boy, and man, there was always the same
ardent sincerity of purpose in him, the same docility to the Voice
that spoke within, the same attitude toward "the life that now is"
which Mr. Curtis, in the letter given in the preceding chapter, has
described, with so fine an insight, as one of reserve and
observation. "He was the dove floating in the air, not yet finding
the spot on which his foot might rest," writes Mr. Curtis of Isaac
Hecker at that period of his youth when his surroundings and
companions were for the first time, and very possibly for the last,
wholly congenial to his natural inclinations. And again: "There was
nothing ascetic or severe in him; but I have often thought since that
his feeling was probably what he might have afterward described as a
consciousness that he must be about his Father's business."
These words are significant testimony to the nobility of the
impression made on others by Father Hecker's personality in early
manhood. Even if our only addition to such scanty knowledge of his
life at Brook Farm as could be gathered from his own conversations in
later years were this happily-touched sketch, it could hardly be more
interesting than it is. But, fortunately, it does not stand alone.
Its fine recognition of the lofty purity of his nature is everywhere
borne out by the unpremeditated and candid self-revelations of the
diary. Their characteristic trait is everywhere aspiration--a sense
of joy in elevation above the earthly, or a sense of depression
because the earthly weighs him down. Then come eager glances of
inquiry in every direction for the satisfaction of his aspirations,
little by little narrowing down to the Catholic Church, wherein the
dove of Mr. Curtis's image was finally to rest his foot for ever. And
in all this he scarcely at all mentions a dread of the Divine wrath
as a motive for his flight. It is not out of the city of destruction,
but toward the celestial city that he goes. He is drawn by what he
wants, not hounded by what he fears. Always there is the reaching out
of a strong nature toward what it lacks--a material for its strength
to work on, a craving for rational joy, coupled with an
ever-increasing conviction that nature cannot give him such a boon.
Men who knew Father Hecker only in his royal maturity, sometimes
cavilled at his words of emphatic faith in guileless nature; but they
had only to know him a little better to learn his appreciation of the
supernatural order, and his recognition of its absolute and exclusive
competency to satisfy nature's highest aspirations. Reading these
early journals, we have constantly recalled the later days when he so
often, and sometimes continually, repeated, "Religion is a boon!" No
one could know that better than he who had so deeply felt the want it
satisfies.
The diary was begun in the middle of April, 1843, when Isaac had just
returned to Brook Farm after a fortnight spent at home. It opens with
a prayer for light and direction, which is its dedication to the uses
not only of an earnest but a religious seeker. He addresses himself
directly to God as Father, not making either appeal or reference to
our Lord. But there is in it an invocation to those "that are in
heaven to intercede and plead" for him, which recalls the fact, so
often mentioned by him, that it was the teaching of the Catechism of
the Council of Trent on the Communion of Saints which cleared away
his final clouds and brought him directly to the Church. There is a
note, too, among his later papers, in which, speaking of the
phenomena of modern spiritualism, he says that the same longing for
an assurance of personal immortality which leads so many into that
maze of mingled truth and error, had a great share in disposing his
mind to accept the authoritative doctrine of the Church, which here
as elsewhere answered fully the deepest longings of his soul.
We shall not attempt to follow the chronological order of the journal
with exactness, but in making our extracts shall pursue the order of
topics rather than of time. By the middle of April the question of
the Church had presented itself so unmistakably to Isaac Hecker, as
the necessary preliminary to further progress--to be settled in one
way or another, either set definitely aside as unessential or else
accepted as the adequate solution of man's problems, that his
struggles for and against it recur with especial frequency. Faber has
said somewhere that the Church is the touchstone of rational
humanity, and that probably no adult passes out of life without
having once, at least, been brought squarely face to face with it and
made to understand and shoulder the tremendous responsibility which
its claims impose. There would be no need of a touchstone if there
were no alloy in human nature, no feebleness in man's will, no
darkness in his understanding. Were that the condition of humanity,
the call to the supernatural order would be simply the summons to
come up higher, its symbol a beacon torch upon the heights. As it is,
the path may be mistaken. He whose feet have been set in it from
birth by Christian training may wilfully forsake it. He whose heart
is pure and whose aspirations noble, may be so surrounded by the
mists of inherited error and misapprehension that the light of truth
fails to penetrate them when it first dawns. The road is always
strait which leads any son of Adam to supernal joy in conscious union
with his Creator, even when his will is good and his desire unfeigned.
We shall find, therefore, that Isaac Hecker's struggles were many and
painful before he fully recognized and attained the necessary means
to the end he craved. They were characteristic also. He was looking
for the satisfaction of his rational aspirations rather than for the
solution of historical problems, although his mind was too clear not
to see that the two are inextricably bound up together. But inasmuch
as at the period of which we are writing, which was that of the
Oxford Tracts, controversy turned mainly on questions of historical
continuity and of Divine warrant in the external revelation of holy
Scripture, it follows that he, and such as he, must have taken a
lonely and unfrequented road towards the truth. Every time he looked
at the Church he was greeted with the spectacle of unity and
uniformity, of discipline and order. These are elements which always
have been, and probably always will be, most attractive to the
classes called educated, to men seeking for external notes of truth,
flying from disorder, fearful of rebellion. But to Isaac Hecker, the
only external note which deeply attracted him was that of universal
brotherhood. If he were to bow his knee with joy to Jesus Christ, it
would be because all, in heaven and earth or hell, should one day
bend in union with him.
It takes an intimate knowledge of Catholicity to perceive the
interior transformation of humanity by its supernatural aids. On the
one hand, the influence of Isaac Hecker's Brook Farm surroundings was
to persuade him to confide wholly in nature, which there was very
nearly at its unaided best. On the other hand, the treasures of
Catholicity for the inner life were hidden from him. Religion, in his
conception of it--in the true conception of it--must be the binding
of all things together, natural and supernatural. Hence we find him
at times complaining that the Church is not sufficient for _his
wants._ If it were not personal in its adaptation to him, it was
little that it should be historical this, hierarchical that, or
biblical the other. It must be his primarily, because he cannot live
a rational and pure life without it. An ordinarily decorous life, if
you will; free from lust or passion, and without gross unreason, but
nevertheless tame, unprogressive, dry and unproductive, without any
absolute certainty except that of the helplessness of man. Such a
life seemed to him hardly more than a synonym for death. "The fact
is," as he writes on a page now lying before us, "I want to live
every moment. I want something positive, living, nourishing. I
negative only by affirming."
The earliest entry in this diary has been already quoted in the first
CHAPTER of the present biography. On its second page occurs the
following account of his impressions while in church on Easter Sunday:
"Monday, April 17, 1843.--Yesterday I went to the Catholic church
at West Roxbury. It was Easter Sunday. The services were, to me, very
impressively affecting. The altar-piece represented Christ's rising
from the tomb, and this was the subject-matter of the priest's
sermon. In the midst of it he turned and pointed to the painting,
with a few touching words. All eyes followed his, which made his
remarks doubly affecting. How inspiring it must be to the priest,
when he is preaching, to see around him the Saviour, and the goodly
company of martyrs, saints, and fathers! There may be objections to
having paintings and sculptures in churches, but I confess that I
never enter a place where there is either but I feel an awe, an
invisible influence, which strikes me mute. I would sit in silence,
covering my head. A sanctified atmosphere seems to fill the place and
to penetrate my soul when I enter, as if I were in a holy temple.
'Thou standest in a holy place,' I would say. A loud word, a heavy
footstep, makes me shudder, as if an infidel were desecrating the
place. I stand speechless, in a magical atmosphere that wraps my
whole being, scarcely daring to lift my eyes. A perfect stillness
comes over my soul; it seems to be soaring on the bosom of clouds."
"Tuesday, April 18.--I confess that either the Church is not
sufficient for my wants or I have not seen it in its glory. I hope it
may be the latter. I do not want to say it, but I must own that it
fills me no more. I contemplate it, I look at it, I comprehend it. It
does not lead me to aspire. I feel that either it has nothing to
give, or that what it has is not that for which my soul is aching. I
know it can be said in reply that I cannot know what the Church has
until I am in communion with it; that it satisfies natures greater
than mine; that it is the true life of the world; that there is no
true spirituality outside of it, and that before I can judge it
rightly my life must be equal to it in purity and elevation. Much
more might be said. But, after all, what is it? The Catholic shows up
the Anglican; the Anglican retorts with an accusation of corruption,
and even a want of purity; the Protestant, the Presbyterian, claim
their own mission at the expense of consistency and good logic. . . .
"The whole fact, I suppose, is that if there is anything in
Succession, Tradition, Infallibility, Church organism and form, it is
in the Catholic Church, and our business will be to stop this
controversy and call an Ecumenical Council which shall settle these
matters according to the Bible, Tradition, and the light of the
Church."
There is a touch of unconscious humor in the final paragraph which
clamored for quotation. But it was plainly written in profound
earnest.
"Thursday, April 20.--My soul is disquieted, my heart aches. . .
Tears flow from my eyes involuntarily. My soul is grieved--for what?
Yesterday, as I was praying, the thought flashed across my mind,
Where is God? Is He not here? Why prayest thou as if He were at a
great distance from thee? Think of it. Where canst thou place Him--in
what locality? Is He not here in thy midst? Is His presence not
nearest of all to thee? Oh, think of it! God is here. . . .
"Am I impious to say that the language used in Scripture for Christ's
expresses the thoughts of my soul? Oh, could we but understand that
the kingdom of heaven is always _at hand_ to the discerner, and that
God calls upon all to 'Repent, for ye shall not all disappear until
it shall open. This generation shall not pass away.'"
Then follows a page of philosophizing on time and eternity, immensity
and space, and "monads who may develop or fulfil their destiny in
other worlds than this," a reminiscence, perhaps, of the lectures on
such topics at which Mr. Curtis says Isaac used to "look in," hoping
to "find an answer to his questions." Such speculations are a trait
throughout the diary, though they are everywhere subordinate to the
practical ends which dominantly interest him. A day or two later
comes a passage, already given in a preceding chapter, in reference
to certain prophetic dreams which it has been given him to see
realized. And at once this follows:
"April 24, Noon.--The Catholic Church alone seems to satisfy my
wants, my faith, life, soul. These may be baseless fabrics, chimeras
dire, or what you please. I may be laboring under a delusion. Yet my
soul is Catholic, and that faith responds to my soul in its religious
aspirations and its longings. I have not wished to make myself
Catholic, but that answers on all sides to the wants of my soul. It
is so rich, so full. One is in harmony all over--in unison with
heaven, with the present, living in the natural body, and the past,
who have changed. There is a solidarity between them through the
Church. I do not feel controversial. My soul is filled."
From this point he speedily recedes. By the next day he is "lost
almost in the flesh"; "fallen into an identity with my body," and
notes that for some time he has "done little in study, but feel that
I have lived very much." What hinders him he supposes to be
"contemplating any certain amount of study which I ought to
accomplish--looking to it as an end. Why should I not be satisfied
when I am living, growing? Did Christ and His apostles study
languages? I have the life--is not that the end?"
"April 28.--What shall I say? Am I wrong? Should I submit and give
myself up to that which does not engage my whole being? To me the
Church is not the great object of life. I am now out of it in the
common meaning. I am not subject to its ordinances. Is it not best
for me to accept my own nature rather than attempt to mould it as
though it were an object? Is not our own existence more than this
existence in the world?
"I read this morning an extract from Heine upon Schelling which
affected me more than anything I have read for six months. The
Church, says Schelling in substance, was first Petrine, then Pauline,
and must be love-embracing, John-like. Peter, Catholicism; Paul,
Protestantism; John, what is to be. The statement struck me and
responded to my own dim intuitions. Catholicism is solidarity;
Protestantism is individuality. What we want, and are tending to, is
what shall unite them both, as John's spirit does--and that in each
individual. We want neither the authority of History nor of the
Individual; neither Infallibility nor Reason by itself but both
combined in Life. Neither Precedent nor Opinion, but Being--neither a
written nor a preached Gospel, but a living one. . . .
"It is only through Christ we can see the love, goodness, and wisdom
of God. He is to us what the telescope is to the astronomer, with
this difference: He so exalts and purifies us that our subject
becomes the power to see. The telescope is a medium through which the
boundaries of our vision are enlarged, but it is passive. Christ is
an active Mediator who begets us if we will, and gives us power to
see by becoming one with Him."
"May 3.--We all look upon this world as suits our moods,
assimilating only such food as suits our dispositions--and no doubt
there is sufficient variety to suit all. . . . Every personality
individualizes the world to himself not subjectively but truly
objectively. . . . Every individual ought, perhaps, to be satisfied
with his own character. For it is an important truth of Fourier's
that attractions are in proportion to destinies. Fear in proportion
to hope, pain in proportion to pleasure, strength in proportion to
destiny, etc. But it is mysterious that we know all this. 'Man has
become as one of us.' We are all dead.
"Ah, mystic! dost thou show thyself in this shape? But now, being
dead, shall we receive life and immortality (for I imagine
immortality the solidarity of life--i.e., the union of the two lives,
here and heaven) through Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, and
so lose 'the knowledge of good and evil.' For as in Adam all died, so
shall ye all be made alive through Jesus Christ.' The effect of the
fall was literally the knowledge of good and evil. God knows no evil,
and when we become one with Him, through the Mediator, we shall
regain our previous state. Knowledge is the effect of sin, and is
perhaps destined to correct itself. Consciousness and knowledge go
together. Spontaneity and life are one. Knowledge is no gain, for it
gives nothing. I can only know what has been given through
spontaneity. Spontaneity is unity, one; knowledge is division of
being. If Adam had not been separated he would doubtless not have
sinned. 'The woman that Thou gavest me said unto me, Eat, and I did
eat.' Still, through the seed of the woman, which will be the union
restored, is the serpent to be bruised."
"May 4.--The real effect of the theory of the Church is to isolate
men from the outward world, withdraw them from its enjoyments, and
make them live a life of sacrifice of the passions. This is one
statement. Another would be this: all these things can and should be
enjoyed, but in a higher, purer, more exalted state of being than is
the present ordinary condition of our minds. The only opposition to
them arises when the soul becomes sensual, falls into their arms, and
becomes lost to higher and more spiritual objects. . . .
"All is dark before me, impenetrable darkness. I appear to live in
the centre. Nothing seems to take hold of my soul, or else it seeks
nothing. Where it is I know not. I meet with no one else around me. I
would that I could feel that some one lived in the same world that I
now do. Something cloudy separates us. I cannot speak from my real
being to others. There is no mutual recognition. When I speak, it is
as if a burden accumulated round me. I long to throw it off, but I
cannot utter my thoughts and feelings in their presence; if I do,
they return to me unrecognized. Shall I ever meet with one the
windows of whose soul will open simultaneously with mine?"
On the first Sunday of May Isaac went into Boston to hear Brownson
preach, and a day or two later made the subjoined shrewd comments on
the sermon in a letter to his mother:
"May 9, '43.--His intention is to preach the Catholic doctrine and
administer the Sacraments. How many of them, I suppose, depends on
circumstances. He justifies himself on the ground that he that is not
against us is for us, and that in times of exigency, and in
extraordinary cases, we may do what we could not be excused for doing
otherwise. And he thinks by proclaiming the Catholic faith and
repudiating the attempt to build up a Church, that in time the
Protestant world will become Catholic in its dispositions, so that a
unity will be made without submission or sacrifice. Under present
circumstances it would be impossible, even if the Protestant churches
should be willing to unite with the Catholic, that the Catholic could
even supply priests for forty millions of Protestants, the Protestant
priests being most of them married, etc.
"I confess the sermon was wholly unsatisfactory to me, un-catholic in
its premises, and many of his arguments and facts chimerical and
illusive. If you grant that the Roman Catholic Church is the true
Church, there is, to my thought, no stopping-place short of its
bosom. Or even if it is the nearest to the truth, you are under
obligations to join it. How any one can believe in either one of
those propositions, as 0. A. B. does, without becoming a Catholic in
fact, I cannot conceive. This special pleading of exceptions, the
necessity of the case, and improbable suppositions, springs more, I
think, from the position of the individual than from the importance
or truth of the arguments made use of. Therefore I think he will give
up in time the ground upon which he now supports his course--not the
object but his position. . . . I have bought a few Catholic books in
Boston which treat upon the Anglican claims to Catholicity, and I
think I can say, so far, I never shall join a Protestant
Church--while I am not positive on the positive side, nor even in any
way as yet decided."
________________________