Life of Father Hecker

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Life of Father Hecker

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Title: Life of Father Hecker
Author: Walter Elliott
Release Date: April 29, 2006 [EBook #18283]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by David McClamrock

THE LIFE OF FATHER HECKER
BY REV. WALTER ELLIOTT ________________________
NEW YORK: THE COLUMBUS PRESS 1891 ________________________
Nihil obstat: AUGUSTINUS F. HEWIT, Censor Deputatus.
Imprimatur: M. A. CORRIGAN, Archiepiscopus Neo-Ebor. ________________________
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
THE reader must indulge me with what I cannot help saying, that I have felt the joy of a son in telling the achievements and chronicling the virtues of Father Hecker. I loved him with the sacred fire of holy kinship, and love him still--only the more that lapse of time has deepened by experience, inner and outer, the sense of truth and of purity he ever communicated to me in life, and courage and fidelity to conscience. I feel it to be honor enough and joy enough for a life-time that I am his first biographer, though but a late born child and of merit entirely insignificant. The literary work is, indeed, but of home-made quality, yet it serves to hold together what is the heaven-made wisdom of a great teacher of men. It will be found that Father Hecker has three words in this book to my one, though all my words I tried to make his. His journals, letters, and recorded sayings are the edifice into which I introduce the reader, and my words are the hinges and latchets of its doors. I am glad of this, for it pleases me to dedicate my good will and my poor work to swinging open the doors of that new House of God that Isaac Hecker was to me, and that I trust he will be to many.
WALTER ELLIOTT ________________________
CONTENTS ________________________
CHAPTER I.
--CHILDHOOD II.--YOUTH III.--THE TURNING-POINT IV.--LED BY THE SPIRIT V.--AT BROOK FARM VI.--INNER LIFE WHILE AT BROOK FARM VII.--STRUGGLES VIII.--FRUITLANDS IX.--SELF-QUESTIONINGS X.--AT HOME AGAIN XI.--STUDYING AND WRITING XII.--THE MYSTIC AND THE PHILOSOPHER XIII.--HIS SEARCH AMONG THE SECTS XIV.--HIS LIFE AT CONCORD XV.--AT THE DOOR OF THE CHURCH XVI.--AT THE DOOR OF THE CHURCH--(Continued) XVII.--ACROSS THE THRESHOLD XVIII.--NEW INFLUENCES XIX.--YEARNINGS AFTER CONTEMPLATION XX.--FROM NEW YORK TO ST. TROND XXI.--BROTHER HECKER XXII.--HOW BROTHER HECKER MADE HIS STUDIES AND WAS ORDAINED PRIEST XXIII.--A REDEMPTORIST MISSIONARY XXIV.--SEPARATION FROM THE REDEMPTORISTS XXV.--BEGINNINGS OF THE PAULIST COMMUNITY XXVI.--FATHER HECKER'S IDEA OF A RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY XXVII.--FATHER HECKER'S SPIRITUAL DOCTRINE XXVIII.--THE PAULIST PARISH AND MISSIONS XXIX.--FATHER HECKER'S LECTURES XXX.--THE APOSTOLATE OF THE PRESS XXXI.--THE VATICAN COUNCIL XXXII.--THE LONG ILLNESS XXXIII.--"THE EXPOSITION OF THE CHURCH" XXXIV.--IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH XXXV.--CONCLUSION
APPENDIX ________________________

INTRODUCTION
BY MOST REV. JOHN IRELAND, D.D., Archbishop of St. Paul.
LIFE is action, and so long as there is action there is life. That life is worth living whose action puts forth noble aspirations and good deeds. The man's influence for truth and virtue persevering in activity, his life has not ceased, though earth has clasped his body in its embrace. It is well that it is so. The years of usefulness between the cradle and the grave are few. The shortness of a life restricted to them is sufficient to discourage many from making strong efforts toward impressing the workings of their souls upon their fellows. The number to whose minds we have immediate access is small, and they do not remain. Is the good we might do worth the labor? We cannot at times refuse a hearing to the question. Fortunately, it is easily made clear to us that the area over which influence travels is vastly more extensive than at first sight appears. The eye will not always discern the undulations of its spreading waves; but onward it goes, from one soul to another, far beyond our immediate ranks, and as each soul touched by it becomes a new motive power, it rolls forward, often with energy a hundred times intensified, long after the shadows of death have settled around its point of departure.
Isaac Thomas Hecker lives to-day, and with added years he will live more fully than he does to-day. His influence for good remains, and with a better understanding of his plans and ideals, which is sure to come, his influence will widen and deepen among laymen and priests of the Church in America. The writing of his biography is a tribute to his memory which the love and esteem of his spiritual children could not refuse; it is, also, a most important service to generations present and unborn, in whose deeds will be seen the fruits of