STUDYING AND WAITING
THAT "movable feast," Thanksgiving Day, gave Isaac occasion for
making this examination of conscience at five o'clock in the morning:
"When I cast my eyes back, it seems to me that I have made some
progress--that I have grown somewhat better than I was. Thoughts,
feelings, and passions which were active in my bosom, and which, in
truth, were not to be well-spoken of, have given place, I hope, to a
better state of mind.
"How am I now actualizing my spiritual life? It would be hard for me
to answer at this moment. Am I less wilful? Do I sacrifice more than
I did? Am I more loving? I am afraid that I am doing nothing more
than I did; and therefore I took up this book to give an account of
myself.
"Study occupies the best part of my time most generally. I recite
lessons in Latin and in German every day, and now intend to study
English grammar again. Then I read considerable, and write letters to
my friends. All this, added to the hours I have to spend in business,
leaves me not sufficient time to meditate; and there is no
opportunity here for me to go into a retired, silent place, where I
can be perfectly still, which is what has the most internal effect on
me, and the best and most lasting. Two things I should and must do
for my own soul's sake: speak less, and think less of my friends. To
do this will give me a retired place and an opportunity for silence
in the midst of all that is around me.
"I feel that I am not doing anything to ameliorate the social
condition of those around me who are under my influence and partial
control. Just now there seems a stand-still in this direction. The
Spirit promises to teach us in all things: what more would it have me
do in this way? What should be my next step? My mind has been
partially drawn away from this by the present poor state of business,
which keeps us cramped in our funds.
"I fear that to take less food than I now do would injure my
health--else I should fast often.
"To-day let me put in practice the two above-mentioned duties:
silence, and less thought upon my friends.
"And now, O God! If Thou helpest not I shall be worse than before.
Heavenly Father, as the lower depends on the light and warmth of the
sun for its grace and beauty, so, and much more, do I depend on Thee
for life and progress. O Lord! from the depths of my heart I would
implore Thee to aid me in all good intentions. My heart overflows
with its fulness of gratitude for what Thou hast done for me, and I
know Thou wilt not shorten Thy hand. Thy beauty, Thy loveliness, O
God! is beyond our finite vision, far above our expression. Lord, all
I can utter is, Help my weakness."
"December 2, 1843.--My heart, these two days back, has been filled
with love. Oh, had I some one to whom I could unbosom myself! There
is a something that affects my heart which is invisible, and to me
strange."
Here he seems to intend the literal, physical heart, making it the
scene, at the same time, of a spiritual emotion. On the same day he
writes:
"I will not feed my body with impure food--is it not of infinitely
more importance that I should not feed my spirit with deeds of
impurity? By this I mean my gaining a living by making and selling
articles which, in my judgment, are injurious, being luxurious and
altogether unnecessary. Should I cease from doing that which is
contrary to my spirit, what else should I do? O Lord, enlighten Thou
my path!"
With what zeal he still persisted in the practice of bodily
mortification this entry bears witness:
"December 6.--Day before yesterday I fasted and took a cold
shower-bath. My diet is apples, potatoes, nuts, and unleavened bread.
No water--scarcely a mouthful a week."
Then follow some thoughts on the solidarity of humanity, which
retards individual progress by weighting each with the burdens of all
others. He finds in this an explanation of the truth that our Lord
took all the sins of men upon Himself and suffered for them on the
cross. The blind ingratitude with which this sacrifice has been
repaid cuts him with anguish, from which he rises into this cry of
love and adoration:
"O Lord! my heart is choked from the utterance of its depth of
thankfulness. O dear Christ! O sweet Christ! O loving Christ! oh,
more than brother, friend! oh, more than any other being can be! O
Son of God! oh, Thou who showest forth the pure love of God! oh, Thou
inexpressible Love! draw me nearer Thee, let me feel more of Thy
purity, Thy love! Oh, baptize me with Thy Spirit and loosen my tongue
that I may speak of Thy love to men! Oh, it cannot be spoken of, nor
can our hearts feel its greatness. God! what is Thy mercy that Thou
sufferest us to live? Our ingratitude is too great to be uttered.
Lord, I am silent, for who can speak in Thy presence? O Father! O
Love! O Loving-kindness! My heart could fly away!"
On his birthday, December 18, 1843, having finished his twenty-third
year, he puts down an account of conscience in the form of prayers
and aspirations to God, breathing a deep sense of humility,
expressing regret for his inactivity, his lack of gratitude for
favors both spiritual and temporal, and adding a fervent appeal for
more light and greater courage. In almost every entry of any length
in the diary during this period he complains of his lack of solitude
and of the means of obtaining it. His mind, after arriving home, was
tossed with many interior distresses which he could not communicate
to his brothers, nor even to his mother, with any hope of
assuagement, but which silence and solitude enabled him to soothe by
prayer. On the last day of the year he reverts to the great changes
which 1843 had witnessed in his soul, and which, he says, were
accompanied by bitter anguish. Twelve months before he had been with
his "dear friend, 0, A. Brownson, filled with an unknown spirit,
driven from home by it, and like one intoxicated, not knowing who I
was or wherefore I was so troubled"--then to Brook Farm, and to
Fruitlands, and back again in New York for the previous five or six
months, the same spirit still in sovereign mastery over him, and,
"though regulated, none the less powerful." He says that he is not so
restless nor his mind so chaotic, but that he still has a pain at
heart which he declares to be almost unbearable, joined to some
nervous excitability.
Meantime, besides trying to employ himself actively in the business
of the Hecker Brothers, he recited lessons daily in both German and
Latin, and read much, chiefly on topics suggested by the difficulties
with which his life was beset, such as philosophy, religious
controversy, and the graver sorts of poetry, of which that of Goethe
made a deep impression on him. The melancholy unrest and longing
which such poetry embodies sunk into his very heart. Often it gave
perfect expression to his own doubting and distressed state of soul.
He also found some relaxation in an occasional visit to the theatre
and heard nearly all the lectures given in the city. One of the
dreams of his life, the amelioration of the social condition of the
working people, he found himself unable to actualize in any
appreciable degree. It is evident that his brothers shared his
philanthropic views; but when it came to set practically to work
there was a lack of harmony. John Hecker was for attaining the object
by stricter discipline, treating the men rather as servants; while
"we," says Isaac, speaking of himself and George, "took the side of
treating them with kindness, and, as far as possible, as brethren."
In truth, it was evidence of nobility of character in these three
brothers that they could so much as dream of actualizing so radical a
social reform in but one establishment amidst so many in ardent
business competition with each other. It may be said in passing that
the practical charity of the Hecker Brothers continued to do credit
to the spirit which originally prompted their attempts at social
reform. During a period of general distress some years since they
distributed bread free, sending their own wagons around the city for
the purpose.
No small part of Isaac's distress arose from what the diary calls the
ugliness, vulgarity, and discord everywhere to be met with in his
daily round of duties. He had one refuge from this in his domestic
life--a pleasant, pure, and peaceful home; and another in the inner
chamber of his soul, better fitted every day to be a sanctuary to
which he could fly for solace. But his heart fairly bled for the vast
mass of men and of women about him, only a few of whom had such an
outer refuge, and perhaps fewer still the inner one. This sympathy he
felt his life long. He ever blamed the huge accretion of law and
customs and selfishness which is called society for much of this
misery of men, this hindrance to a fair distribution of the goods of
this world, this guilty permission on the part of the fortunate few
of the want and dirt and ugliness and coarseness which are the lot of
almost the whole race of man. Yet he was not blind to individual
guilt. Right here in his diary, after lamenting his enforced
inability to succor human misery, he says that some words dropped by
the workmen in conversation with him cause him to record his
conviction that suffering and injustice, together with the
deprivation of liberty, are due to one's own fault as well as to that
of others:
"Every evil that society inflicts upon me, the germ of it is my own
fault; in proportion as I free myself from my vices will I free
myself from the evils which society inflicts upon me. Be true to
thyself and thou canst not be false to any one. Be true to thyself
and it follows as night follows day that others cannot be false to
thee."
Of course this panacea offers only an inward healing, for none more
readily admitted than he who wrote these sentences that in externals
the true heart is often the first victim of the malice of the false
heart.
Ever and again we find in the diary reflections on the general aspect
of religion. The Protestant churches seemed to him to fail to meet
the aspirations of the natural man; that is the burden of his
complaint against them all. Some, like the Unitarians, did but offer
man his best self and hence added nothing to humanity, while humanity
at its best ceaselessly condemned itself as insufficient. This
insufficiency of man for himself, Calvinistic and Lutheran
Protestantism in their turn condemned as a depravity worthy of the
deepest hell, making man a wretch maimed in his very nature so
cruelly and fatally as to be damned for what he could not help being
guilty of. Meantime the Catholic Church was seen by Isaac Hecker as
having elements the most attractive. It recognized in man his native
dignity; it saw in him a being made God-like by the attribute of
reason, and called him to a state infinitely more God-like by a
supernatural union with Christ. It understood his weakness, pitied
it, and knew how to cure it. True, there are passages here in which
his impatience with the public attitude of the Church betrays that
his view of it was yet a distant one; they show, also, an undue
concentration of his gaze upon social evils. "The Church is a great
almoner," he says, "but what is she doing to ameliorate and improve
the circumstances of the poorer and more numerous classes? She is
more passive than active." "Instead of the Church being in the head
and front of advancement, suffering martyrdom for Christ, she is in a
conservative relation with society." Yet he adds: "We speak of the
Church as she is exhibited by her bishops and clergy, and only in
this sense."
Isaac Hecker's renewed experiment of engaging in business and
following at the same time the lead of the peremptory Spirit within
him soon proved a failure. He complains, though not as bitterly as
the year before when he felt the first agony of this suffering, that
the greater part of his true life is lost in his present
position--the thoughts, feelings, studies which are of supreme value
to him, getting entrance into his mind almost by stealth, while, at
the same time, he is not of much use in the business and of little
benefit to others in any way. On March 10 he wrote to Brownson that
he was going to give up business totally and finally, and asked his
Advice about a course of study "for the field of the Church," not
having yet fully settled as to whether it should be "the Roman or the
Anglican." Upon his determination to withdraw from the secular
affairs of life he experienced "such peace, calmness, and deep,
settled strength and confidence" as never before. "I feel the
presence of God," he writes, "wherever I am. I would kneel and praise
God in all places. In His presence I walk and feel His breath
encompass me. My soul is borne up by His presence and my heart is
filled by His influence. How thankful ought we to be! How humble and
submissive! Let us lay our heads on the pillow of peace and die
peacefully in the embrace of God."
Brownson answered his letter with one of encouragement to carry out
his purpose. Yet, there was a pang; Isaac laments "the domestic
comforts, the little offices of tender love" which he should lose by
going from home. And well he might, for tender love may well describe
the bond uniting the dear old mother and her three noble sons. The
present writer had no personal acquaintance with John Hecker, but we
never heard his name mentioned by Father Hecker except with much
affection. George always seemed to us something like a perfect man.
He especially it was who all his life gave his entire unselfish love
to his brother Isaac. The reader has noticed, we hope, that there has
been no mention so far in the diary of difficulty in obtaining money
for the expenses of his various journeyings and for his support when
absent from home. The two brothers in New York appear to have held
these pilgrimages in search of the truth in such reverence as to make
Isaac their partner, only in a higher sense than ever before. And
George Hecker, especially, seemed throughout his life to continue
Isaac a member of his great and rich firm, lavishing upon his least
wish large sums of money, and these not only for his strictly
personal expenditure, but for any cause whatever he might have at
heart.
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