FROM NEW YORK TO ST. TROND
ISAAC HECKER'S zeal for social reform lent force to his strictly
personal cravings for a more religious life; he longed for wider
scope than individual effort could possibly bestow, and also for a
supernatural point of vantage. "If we would do humanity any good," he
writes in his diary while considering his vocation, "we must act from
grounds higher than humanity; our standpoint must be above the race,
otherwise how can we act _upon_ humanity?" He also speaks of the
fundamental necessity of "an impulse of divine love" actuating the
reformer of social evils. He addresses himself thus: "If thou wouldst
move the race to greater good and higher virtue, lose thyself in the
Universal. Be so great as to give thyself to something nobler than
thyself if thou wouldst be ennobled, immortalized." In many pages of
the last two volumes of his diary these notes of sympathetic love for
his fellow-men are mingled with yearnings for solitude. "This book,"
he writes on the last page of one of them, "has answered some little
purpose; for when I wanted to speak to some one and yet was alone, it
cost me no labor to scribble in it. It would give me great pleasure
if I had a friend who would exchange such thoughts with me." He was
soon to enter into that spiritual heritage which among its other
treasures bestows the beatitude of the sage, "Blessed is the man who
hath found a true friend."
Little by little a distinctly penitential mood came over him, and it
occupies nearly the whole of the last volume of the diary with the
most unreserved expressions of grief for sin, or, rather, for a state
of sinfulness, since the specific mention of sins is nearly
altogether wanting. We meet with page after page of self-accusation
in general terms: "I am in want of greater love for those around me;
I perform my spiritual duties too negligently; too little of my time
is devoted to spiritual exercises. I feel all over sick with sin!
Here is my difficulty, O Lord, and do Thou direct me: I am always in
doubt, when I do not think of Thee alone, that I am sinning and that
my time is misspent."
His protestations of sorrow are extremely fervent and very numerous;
and as the Lent of 1845 approached he records his purpose of
restricting himself to one meal a day. As he never ate meat, nor any
"product of animal life," and drank only water, his "nuts, bread, and
apples" once a day must have been his diet all through the
penitential season. The reader will remember _ein herrliches Essen_
at Concord: "bread, maple-sugar, and apples."
In the middle of February he opened his mind more fully to Bishop
McCloskey, whom he continually calls his spiritual director. He had
now to reveal the discoveries of holy penance, and to add to his
other motives for leaving the world the dread of falling into mortal
sin. He had, he tells us, misgivings as to whether he was ambitious
or not. One of his spiritual states he thus alludes to:
"I will ask my confessor how it is--if it is so with others, that
they feel no sense of things, no joy, no reality, no emotion, no
impulse, nothing positive within or around," but only the
consciousness of the need of a terrible atonement. This is
accompanied by frantic prayers to God, invocations of the Blessed
Virgin, St. Francis of Assisi and other saints. And he says that he
has been told that he is scrupulous, and complains that at confession
he can only accuse himself in general terms.
Complete abandonment to the divine will seems to have been the
outcome of a season of much distress of soul, and bodily
mortification. On April 2 he writes: "The last time I saw my director
he spoke to me concerning the sacred ministry, and this is a subject
I feel an unspeakable difficulty about. I told him that I desired to
place myself wholly in his hands and should do whatever he directed.
I do not wish to be any more than nothing. I give myself up. So far
the Lord seems to be with me, and I hope that He will not forsake me
in the future."
As might have been anticipated, Bishop McCloskey's advice was wise.
Plainly, his own hope was that young Hecker should enter the secular
priesthood, but there is no evidence in the numerous references to
the matter in the diary, that this caused him to do more than make
his young friend fully acquainted with that state of life. He had him
call at the newly-opened diocesan seminary at Fordham and become
acquainted with the professors. Bishop Hughes, whom he also
consulted, urged him to go to St. Sulpice in Paris, and to the
Propaganda in Rome, and make his studies for the secular priesthood.
But they failed to win him to their opinion, and were too enlightened
to seek to influence him except by argument. Father Hecker ever held
the very highest views on the dignity of the priesthood, considering
its vocation second to none. But while he was irresistibly inclined
to a state of retirement quite incompatible with the duties of the
secular priesthood in America, he also felt the most urgent need of
constant advice and companionship for guidance in his interior life.
These seemingly contradictory requirements he hoped to find united in
a religious community, and Bishop McCloskey emphatically assured him
that his anticipations would not be disappointed. In addition to
this, Isaac Hecker had at least some premonitions of an apostolic
vocation calling for a wider range of activity than can be usually
compassed by the diocesan clergy. But we have often heard him say
that the immediate impulse which induced his application to be made a
Redemptorist was need of "intimate and careful spiritual guidance."
His director therefore became satisfied that he should become a
religious, and turned his attention to the Society of Jesus, giving
him the lives of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier to read, and,
doubtless, answered his inquiries about that order. "But," he said in
after years, "I had no vocation to teach young boys and felt unfitted
for a student's life"; added to this was the certainty of the
postponement of any public activity on his part for many years if he
became a Jesuit.
After mentioning that he had read the life of St. Francis Xavier, he
says that an acquaintance had written him that a German priest,
living in Third Street, wanted to see him. This was one of the
Redemptorist Fathers who were newly established in the city. This
priest, whose name is not given, undertook to assume direction of
Isaac, and was very urgent with him to make a spiritual retreat with
a view to deciding his vocation. "He is a very zealous person--too
much so it seems to me," is the comment in the diary, and the answer
was a refusal. But what he saw in the community pleased and attracted
Isaac, for everything was poor and plain, and there was an air of
solitude. However, he would by no means change his spiritual adviser,
writing, "I strive to follow my spiritual director or else I should
be fearful of my state. All my difficulties, sins, and temptations I
make him acquainted with. . . . Though the world has no particular
hold upon me, I give it up once and for all. It gives me pain to feel
my perfect want of faith in myself as being in any way useful."
Meantime, on Trinity Sunday, he had been confirmed with his brother
George, whose entrance into the Church is here first indicated; no
other member of the family became a Catholic. Isaac took the
additional name of Thomas on receiving this sacrament, in honor of
St. Thomas Aquinas.
Again he writes:
"I have tried to study to-day, but I cannot. Is it not the business
of man to save his own soul, and this before all things? Does the
study of Greek and Latin help a soul towards its salvation? Is it not
quite a different thing from grace? Sometimes I feel strongly
inclined to set aside all study, all reading, as superficial and not
so important as contemplation and silence."
The time was coming when the Holy Spirit would do this in spite of
him and in a way the reverse of pleasant. Meantime he worked away at
his books and attended his classes at Cornelius Institute, which was
the name of the private school he had been attending, till July 16,
the commencement day. In recording his impressions of the school and
the acquaintances there made, he says that with one possible
exception the young men were of little interest to him, lacking
earnestness of character. He does not name the teachers or give the
location of the school. Yet he says his experience there had been
useful "and chastened my hopes. I have seen by means of it much more
clearly into the workings of Protestantism, its want of deep
spirituality, its superficiality, and its inevitable tendency to
no-religion."
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.
McMaster insisted on visiting Newman at Littlemore, and afterwards
gave a glowing account of his visit. He had been received by the
great man, who did not enter the Church till a few months later, with
the utmost kindness. He found him standing in his library, reading a
book. He asked many questions about the tendency of men's minds in
America, and was especially interested in Arthur Carey, with whose
influence among American Episcopalians and early death the reader has
been made acquainted. They lodged at a decent little inn over a
pastry cook's shop and did not go sight-seeing to any extent.
McMaster's companions did not wait for his return from Oxford, but
when the packet sailed for Antwerp, which was Sunday, the 30th of
August, they went down to Folkestone and took passage. They arrived
the following morning, and, armed with a letter from Father Rumpler
to a Madame Marchand, a warm friend of the congregation, they went
straight to the nearest Church to inquire the way to her house. It
happened to be the Jesuit church, and one of the fathers kindly
guided them to the lady's house. She was delighted to serve them;
gave them an excellent dinner, and, after they had visited Rubens'
great picture, the Descent from the Cross, set them forth on their
journey; but the "yea, yea and nay, nay" of Scripture, or rather
_jah, jah, nein, nein,_ was their only conversation with the good
lady, for although young Walworth could speak French and Isaac
German, she knew nothing but Flemish. Distances are not great in
little Belgium, and so before night they were at St. Trond, a little
city about thirty-five miles southeast of Antwerp and twenty miles
from Liège. Here they were soon joined by Mr. McMaster, and their
novitiate began. Isaac Hecker was now twenty-five years and nine
months old.
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