Life of Father Hecker | Page 9

of its career. Although Father Hecker did not write
the little story, it is so true both to fact and to sentiment that we make
an extract from it. The clock hung in the Paulist sacristy for about ten
years. Then, for some reason, it was taken to the country house of Mr.
George Hecker, where it was accidentally destroyed by fire:
"There were points of resemblance in my own and my boy maker's
nature. In him, regularity, order, and obedience were fixed principles;
and with us both, Time represented Eternity. As the days of his young
manhood came his pursuits and tastes in life changed. Deep thought
took possession of his mind, and with it a tender love for souls and a
heart-hungriness for a further knowledge of what man was given a soul
for, and the way in which he was to save it. As these thoughts were
maturing in his mind I often noticed his troubled look. One Sunday in
particular, he lingered behind the congregation and stood before me,
with a new expression in his keen gray eye; and amid the silence of the
deserted aisles he thus apostrophized me: 'Farewell, old friend!
fashioned by these hands, thou representest Truth, the eternal. What
man is ever seeking, through me thou hast found. Here I stand, not
man's but God's noblest work, as yet not having repaid my Maker with
one act of duty or of service. Thou hast faithfully performed thy
mission; henceforth I labor to perform mine.' With a grave and sad look
my boy maker, now a young man, left me. I felt then that we had
looked our last upon each other in this place; but little did either of us
dream of where, when, and how we would meet again. For thirty-five
years I labored on unchanged, though I must own to having had some
ailments now and then. About this period of my existence I overheard
straggling remarks, as the worshippers passed out of the church, which
led me to conclude that some change was contemplated, and my
suspicions were confirmed by the rector proposing from the pulpit the
erection of a new church edifice in another part of the city, to be
fashioned after a more modern style of architecture. . . . In accordance

with the promise made my boy maker, I was to go back to him. My
heart bounded at the prospect. Never in all those years had I seen
him. . . .
"In a short time I learned that the author of my existence, after many
hard struggles and trials, had at last found truth and light, peace and
rest, in the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church. He had returned, when
he found me, from the Plenary Council of 1867. He is now a priest, and
the head of a religious community. Need I assure those who have been
interested in my history that I also have found a home in the same
community, where I am consecrated to its use? I am no longer alone
now; I am busy from morning until night, helping to regulate the
movements of the community. There is not an hour in the day when I
do not see my boy maker. We have established sympathies in common;
I call him to prayers, to his meals, to his matins, and to his rest. Many a
time, when he finds me alone, he gives me some spiritual reading, or
says aloud some prayers. Every time I strike, he breathes an aspiration
of love and thanksgiving. In short, we have found our glorious mission
in our new birth. We are both apostles: I represent Time; he preaches of
Eternity."
There can be little doubt, however, that the chief formative influence in
the Hecker household was that which came directly through the mother.
Young as she was when an unduly heavy share of the domestic burdens
fell to her portion, she took it up with courage and bore it with dignity
and fidelity. What aid her father could give her was doubtless not
lacking, but we may well suppose that, as age crept on Engel Freund,
his business began to slip away from him into younger hands. He was
probably no longer in a position to endow daughters or to undertake the
education of grandchildren. What is certain is that Caroline Hecker's
boys, after very brief school-days, were put at once to hard work. What
decided their choice of an occupation is not so sure, but in all
probability they consulted with their mother and then took the
common-sense view that as there is a never-failing market for food
staples, even poverty, if mated with diligence and sagacity, may find
there a fair field for successful enterprise. John, the eldest, upon whom