AT HOME AGAIN
IT was the middle of August, 1843, when Isaac Hecker once more took
up his residence with his family in New York. His first endeavor was
to sink back again as far as possible into the old routine of
business.
"To-morrow I commence to work," he writes on the evening of his
return. "My interior state is quiet and peaceful. I have not met any
one yet. My dear mother understands me better than any one else. How
far business will interfere with my inner life remains to be seen. O
Lord! help me to keep my resolution, which is not to let the world
enter my heart, but to keep it looking toward Thee! My heart has been
in a constant prayerful state since I have been at home. It is busy
in its own sanctuary, its own temple, God. O Lord! preserve it."
One of the first noteworthy things revealed by the diary--which from
this time on was kept with less regularity than before--is that Isaac
not only maintained his abstemious habits after his return, but
increased their rigor. For a robust man, working hard for many hours
out of every twenty-four, and deprived of all the pleasant
relaxations, literary, conversational and musical, to which he had
been accustoming himself for many months, the choice of such a diet
as is described in the following sentences was certainly
extraordinary:
"August 30.--If the past nine months or more are any evidence, I find
that I can live on very simple diet--grains, fruit, and nuts. I have
just commenced to eat the latter; I drink pure water. So far I have
had wheat ground and made into unleavened bread, but as soon as we
get in a new lot, I shall try it in the grain."
He had evidently at this time a practical conviction of the truth of
a principle which, in after years, he repeated to the present writer
in the form of a maxim of the transcendentalists: "A gross feeder
will never be a central thinker." It is a truth of the spiritual no
less than of the intellectual order. A little later we come upon the
following profession of a vegetarian faith, which will be apt to
amuse as well as to edify the reader:
"_Reasons for not eating animal food._
"It does not feed the spirit.
"It stimulates the propensities.
"It is taking animal life when the other kingdoms offer sufficient
and better increment.
"Slaughter strengthens the lower instincts.
"It is the chief cause of the slavery of the kitchen.
"It generates in the body the diseases animals are subject to, and
encourages in man their bestiality.
"Its odor is offensive and its appearance unæsthetic."
The apprehension under which he had labored, that city life would
present many temptations which he would find it difficult to
withstand, appears to have been unfounded. Some few social
relaxations he now and then permitted himself, but they were mostly
very sober-toned. "Last evening I attended a Methodist love-feast,"
is his record of one of these. "In returning I stopped at the ward
political meeting." Then he notes that although the business he
follows is especially full of temptations--as no doubt it was to a
man keeping so tight a rein over his most natural and legitimate
appetites--he feels deeply grateful that, so far, he has had no need
to fear his being led away. "What yet remains?" he adds. "My diet is
all purchased and all produced by hired labor. I suppose that slave
labor produces almost all my dress. And I cannot say that I am
rightly conditioned until all I eat, drink, and wear is produced by
love."
It was a vivid recollection of these early efforts after an ascetic
perfection which had neither guide nor definite plan, which prompted
the following vigorous self-appreciation, made by Father Hecker two
years before his death. He had been speaking of some of his youthful
experiments in this direction, and ended with an amused laugh and the
ejaculation,
"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."
"September 8.--On the evening of the 6th I went to see the French
Opera Company in Auber's 'Black Domino.' It did not please me as well
as some music I have heard, though parts of it were very beautiful.
The hymns of the nuns were very sweet. The thought occurred to me
that if the Church does not provide religious gratifications for the
true wants of humanity, she must be silent if men feed them
profanely. It is because the Church has not done her duty that there
are so many secular societies for Reformation, Temperance, and so on.
The Church has provided for the salvation of the sinner's soul by
means of spiritual acts, such as prayer, penance, the Eucharist and
other sacraments. But now she must provide terrestrial sacraments for
the salvation and transfiguration of the body."
"We should strive constantly to actualize the ideal we perceive. When
we do realize all the beauty and holiness that we see, we are not
called to deny ourselves, for then we are living as fully on all
sides as we have capacity to do. Are we not in this state? Then, if
we are sincere, we will give up lower and unnecessary gratifications
for the sake of the ideal we have in view.
"I would die to prove my immortality."
"At times we are called to rely on Providence, to be imprudent and
reckless according to the wisdom of the world. So I am willing to be
thought. Each of us has an individual character to act out, _under
the inspiration of God,_ and this is the highest and noblest we can
do. We are forms differing from one another, and if we are acting
under the inspirations of the Highest, we are doing our uttermost;
more the angels do not. What tends to hinder us from realizing the
ideal which our vision sees must be denied, be it self, wealth,
opinion, or death."
"The Heart says, 'Be all that you can.' The Intellect says, 'When you
are all that you can be--what then?'"
"Infinite love is the basis of the smallest act of love, and when we
love with our whole being, we are in and one with God."
"To love is to lose one's self and gain God. To be all in love is to
be one with God."
"When the Spirit begets us, we are no more; the Spirit is, and there
is nothing else."
"There is much debauchery in speaking wilfully.
"Every act of self is sin, is a lie.
"The Spirit will lead you into solitude and silence if it has
something to teach you.
"You must be born again to know the truth. It cannot be inculcated.
"To educate is to bring forth, not to put in. To put in is death;
to flow out is life."
Lest the reader may have got an impression, from any of the extracts
already given, that Isaac Hecker was puffed up by the pride of his
own innocence, we transcribe what follows. It shows that he did not
fall under the Apostle's condemnation: "If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." It was
written on the last Sunday of September, and, after this long
outpouring of confession, longing, and weakness, the diary was not
again resumed for nearly a month. The desire expressed in its second
paragraph for the kind of spiritual refreshment which in after years
he so often enjoyed under the name of a "retreat," seems noteworthy.
"September 24, 1843.--The human heart is wicked above all things. The
enemy of man is subtle and watchful beyond conception. Instead of
being on the way of goodness, I am just finding out the wickedness of
my nature, its crookedness, its impurity, its darkness. I want deep
humility and forgetfulness of self. I am just emerging out of gross
darkness and my sight is but dim, so that my iniquities are not
wholly plain to my vision.
"At present I feel as if a week of quiet silence would be the means
of opening more deeply the still flowing fountains of divine life. I
would cut off all relations but that of my soul with the Spirit--all
others seem intrusions, worldly, frivolous. The inpouring of the
Spirit is checked by so much attention to other than divine things.
In the bustle and noisy confusion its voice is unheard.
"I feel that one of my greatest weaknesses, because it leads me to so
much sin, is my social disposition. It draws me so often into
perilous conversations, and away from silence and meditation with the
Spirit. Lately I have felt almost ready to say that good works are a
hindrance to the gate of heaven. Pride and self-approbation are so
often mixed with them. I feel that nothing has been spoken against
the vain attempt to trust in good works which my soul does not fully
accord with. This is a new, a very new experience for me."
The foregoing must be understood in the sense of good works hindering
better works. Isaac Hecker felt his noblest aspirations to be, for
the moment at any rate, towards solitude and the passive state of
prayer; and in this he was hindered by the urgency of his zeal for
the propagation of philanthropic schemes and his great joy in
communing with men whom he hoped to find like-minded with himself. The
time came when he was able to Join the two states, the inner
purifying the outer man and directing his energies by the instinct of
the Holy Spirit. This entry goes on as follows:
"By practice of our aspirations, ideals, and visions, we convert them
into real being.
"We should be able to say, 'Which of you convinceth me of sin?'
before we are fit to preach to others in such a way that our
preaching may have a practical effect upon society.
"Did all our efforts flow into realizing the teachings of the Spirit,
we should do much more good and be greater in the sight of God than
we are now by so much speaking and writing. But let us be watchful
that the pride of good works does not take the place of that of
speaking and writing.
"By our sins and many weaknesses we are prevented from entering the
Promised Land, and must die just in sight of it. Instead of being
humble, willing, and self-denying in our youth, and being led by the
Spirit of God, we keep on in the spirit of the world and give all the
substance of our being to its service. And when we are nearly worn
out we flee to God, and die, perhaps, in sight of heaven, instead of
having been among its inhabitants, living in it upon earth, in the
full bloom of our youthful joy of life. . . .
"The Lord has been good to me and my heart is filled with His warm
love. Blessed be Thou, O God! for Thou hast given me a taste of Thy
sweetness. Thou hast given me gratitude and thankfulness and an
overflowing heart of praise. I would stand still and shout and bless
God. It is God in us that believes in God. Without the light of God
we should be in total darkness, and He is the only source of light.
The more of God we have in us, the more we see beyond us.
"Thy inspiration, O God! is love and wisdom. In Thee they are one, as
light and warmth are in the fire.
"Thou art the true, eternal food of life, and he that has tasted Thee
can never be at rest until he is wholly filled with Thee. Lord, when
we are without Thee we are lost, dead, in darkness. It is in and by
Thy presence that we live and move and have our being.
"Ever more, O Lord, increase Thy Spirit in us until between as there
is no more we or Thee, but Thou, O Father, art all!
"Like the fixed light in a crystal which flashes back the light of
the sun, so does the soul of man reflect God.
"A good life consists in passive as well as active virtues.
"O Lord, so fill me that nothing shall be left but Thee, and I may be
no more."
One would be tempted to believe that none but a master in the
spiritual life could have written the sentences which immediately
follow this outburst of love and praise. Yet remember that Isaac
Hecker was not yet twenty-four, and that he knew nothing of the ways
of the Spirit except what the Spirit Himself had directly taught him:
"The reason why men are perplexed and in darkness about their being
and the questions which their being often asks, is not that these are
insoluble, but that the disposition and spirit in which a solution is
attempted is so contrary to that in which they may be solved, that
they appear as hidden mysteries.
"When we come together to converse, it should be to learn from each
other what good we can and ought to do, and so mingle the brightness
of one with the dimness of the other. Our meetings should be such
that we should go away feeling that God had been with us and
multiplied our blessings. The question should be, 'Brother, can you
teach me the way of the Lord in a more perfect manner than that in
which I tread it, so that my soul may be increased and God abide in
me more and more?' Oh! he is my brother, my master, who leads me to
do more and more good and to love and live more of God. He that does
not increase my heart in love or my mind in true godly wisdom, is
unprofitable and negatively injurious to me.
"Wilfulness locks up while willingness" (docility) "unlocks the
portal to the divine mysteries of God. I would not attempt to solve a
mystery by intellect, but by being."
"October 17.--It is some time since I have written in this book. All
my spare time has been occupied in writing letters to my friends,
meditating, feeling, arranging matters with my brothers regarding our
relations with each other, and attending to the business. I have had
little time to read and to visit my friends. Since I have written my
feelings have become more definite, my thoughts clearer and more
distinct, and my whole mind more systematic. . . .
"The settlement which has been made with my brothers gives me the
opportunity of doing what my spirit has long demanded of me. This
afternoon I have been working on their bedroom, making it larger and
more pleasant for their minds. This is the first movement I have made
toward ameliorating their condition. I hope that God will give me
strength to continue."
"October 18.--I feel this afternoon a deep want in my soul
unsatisfied by my circumstances here, the same as I experienced last
winter when I was led from this place. It is at the very depth of my
being. Ah, it is deeply stirred! Oh, could I utter the aching void I
feel within! Could I know what would fill it! Alas! nothing that can
be said, no, nothing, can touch the aching spot. In silence I must
remain and let it ache. I would cover myself with darkness and hide
my face from the light. Oh, could I but call upon the Lord! Could I
but say, Father! Could I feel any relationship!"
"November 3.--All things considered, could I, under any
circumstances, have more opportunities for self-culture and for doing
good than I have in my present position?
"For one thing, there is too much demand on me for physical action.
My heart and head have not their share of time. But when I consider,
I am at a loss to know how we can possibly diminish our business in
any way without a still greater demand on us for physical labor in
consequence of diminishing it.
"Yesterday afternoon I went alone in my bedroom and I was led to
pray, and to think what more I can do for the friends around me than
I now do. This morning I arose and prayed, and felt determined not to
let any outward event disturb my inward life; that nothing should
ruffle my inward peace, and that this day should be one of interior
life, let come what would.
"Often I think of my past life and my present with such a strength of
emotion that I would cry aloud, 'O Heaven help me from my course!
This is not the life I would lead, but how shall I change it? O Lord!
wilt Thou guide me and lead me, no matter what pain or distress I may
have to pass through, to the true path Thou wouldst have me go in?
Oh! I thank Thee for all Thou hast in any way inflicted on me; it has
been to me the greatest blessing I could have received. And, O Lord!
chasten me more, for I need it. How shall I live so that I may be the
best I can be under any conditions? If those in which I now am are
not the best, where shall I go or how shall I change them? Teach me,
O Lord! and hear my humble prayer.'"
The following account of his curious inner experiences tells of the
positive interference of God and His angels, supplementing the calmer
moods in which Isaac longed for and struggled towards the settled
condition only to be attained after his entering the Church.
"November 5.--How is it and why is it that I feel around me the
constant presence of invisible beings who affect my sensibility, and
with whom I converse, as it were, in thought and feeling, but not in
expression? At times they so move me that I would escape them, if I
could, by running away from where I am. I can scarcely keep still; I
feel like beating, raving, and grasping what I know not. Ah! it is an
unearthly feeling, and painfully afflicts my heart. How to get rid of
it I do not know. If I remain quietly where I am, by collecting its
scattered rays it burns more deeply into my soul, bringing forth deep
sighs, groans, and at times demanding all my energy to repress an
unnatural howl.
"How shall I escape this? By remaining here and trying to bear it, or
by travelling? To do the latter has often occurred to me of late. By
such a cause I was driven from home last winter. What the result will
be this time I cannot tell; but if I did know, I would not wait, as I
did then, until it came on me with such power as to be torturing in
the extreme. Ah, what nervous strength and energy I feel at such
times! If I speak of it to my brothers, they cannot understand me,
never having had the same experience. My timidity, which does not
wish to be thought of as desiring anything extra on account of my
life, makes me bear it until it is unendurable. Hence I am silent so
long as it does not speak for itself, which extremity might be
prevented were circumstances other than they are. Since they are not,
let it be borne with, say strength and resignation united with hope.
'Tis this that is fabled in Prometheus and Laocoön--and how well
fabled, too."
It is significant that after every extraordinary disturbance, such
as the above, he experienced the impulse to study the credentials of
claimants in the outer religious world, the envoys of the Deity to
man; and this especially concerning the Catholic Church. He goes on
at once to say:
"Of late I have felt more disposed to look into church matters than
for six months past. Last evening I made a visit to the Rev. Mr.
Haight" (an Episcopal clergyman) "and conversed with him about that
subject for an hour and a half. We differed very little in our
opinions. If the Church of Rome has fallen into corruptions from her
over-warmth, the Anglican has neglected some of her duties through
her coldness. And if the Anglican receives the first five or six
councils as legitimate and rejects the Council of Trent as not a full
one, still, as an individual, I think Rome did not establish or
enjoin anything in those decrees" (the Tridentine) "which was not in
harmony with the Spirit of Christ, the Scriptures, and tradition. But
the Anglican thinks she has, and hence, in his judgment, they are
unwarrantable and unnecessary."
"November 15.--How does Jesus commune with Humanity through the
Church? Does He now commune with the Church? Was the life given by
Him to His immediate disciples all that has been given and
transmitted to us, or does He now commune with the visible Church?
And how? He promised to be with His disciples even unto the end of
the world, to send the Comforter who should lead them into all truth,
and to intercede for us with the Father. The Church holds that its
sacraments and forms are the visible means for communing with the
invisible--that grace is imparted through them to the worthy
receiver. Is it true that such grace is imparted? If it is, it will
be shown by its fruits. Contrast the Catholic who believes most in
the sacraments with the Quaker who does not believe in them at all as
religious or moral forces. Certainly, if the sacraments have any
beneficial effect, it should be shown in the contrast between those
who totally deny their efficacy and those who religiously believe in
them. Now, does this show what one would naturally expect to flow
from faith in the sacraments?
"November 20.--I feel in better health than I have ever had, both
mind and body, having at the same time an increased sensitiveness, so
that the touch of any one I cannot bear. Also, I am conscious of a
more constant spiritual communion. I feel more vividly and distinctly
the influence and presence--spiritual presence--of others.
"I lie down in my bed at night with the same feelings with which I
rise in the morning. I anticipate as much from one as from the other.
The events, emotions, and thoughts which come in my sleep are as much
a part of my real life as those of the day. Waking and sleeping are
two forms of existence. To me the latter state is full of interest
and expectation. The two states mutually act upon each other. . . .
"Hope, Faith, Wish, are the presentiments of sight, the evidences of
becoming sight to the senses. They are the forerunners of vision. It
is by them we know. . . .
"To believe is to see, not with the senses but with the higher
faculties of the soul, reason, imagination, hope. . . .
"I believe that every faculty may be elevated to the state of
prophecy.
"Reasoning is faith struggling with doubt."
________________________