The following is from a letter to his mother announcing his ordination:
"DEAR MOTHER: You have been doubly blessed by Almighty G.o.d within the past few weeks. Your youngest son has been ordained priest in G.o.d"s one, holy, Catholic Church, and prays for you daily when he offers up to G.o.d the precious body and blood of His beloved Son, our Lord; and besides you have received, by the marriage of another of your sons [George], a new daughter, who, being also a child of the Holy Church, must be kind, dutiful, pious, fearing G.o.d, and loving above all things our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Are not these, dear mother, blessings? Do they not convey to your heart joy and consolation? They ought and surely do. Your latter days dear mother, will be your happiest."
The remainder of the letter is filled with exhortations to enter the Church, and arguments drawn from Scripture.
We may mention a letter written to Father Hecker by Father Heilig on the eve of the former"s departure for America; a message full of affectionate good wishes and claims of friendship and union in prayer with the singular young pilgrim from the Western World.
The following extracts from the memoranda may be of interest as embodying Father Hecker"s views of how to study divinity, resulting from his own experience in preparing for the priesthood:
"March, 1884.--I told Father Hecker, in course of conversation, about my reading the life of the Cure of Ars. He said: "A saintly man indeed, and one gifted with a supernatural character to an extraordinary degree. But it seems to me that his biographer misunderstood him somewhat. He seems to admit that the Cure of Ars had a naturally stupid mind, because he had so much difficulty in getting through his studies for the priesthood. The truth, probably, was that just at that time the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit came upon him and incapacitated him for his studies. But everything about his after life shows that, though a rustic man, he had a good mind, a keen native wit, quick and clear perception. I had something the same difficulty myself.
"During my novitiate and studies one of my great troubles was the relation between infused knowledge and acquired knowledge; how much one"s education should be by prayer and how much by study; the relation between the Holy Ghost and professors.
"In the novitiate they were all too much on the pa.s.sive side-- unbroken devotional and ascetic routine. In the studentate, too much on the active side--leaving nothing for infused science and prayer as a part of the method of study. They soon broke me down. I told them so. If I went on studying I would have been driven mad. Let me alone, I said. Let me take my own way and I will warrant that I will know enough to be ordained when the time comes. They said I was a scandal.
Then they sent me to England to De Held. I am persuaded that in the study of divinity not enough room is given to prayer and not enough account made of infused science."
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CHAPTER XXIII
A REDEMPTORIST MISSIONARY
"I WOULD not have become a priest had I lived in Europe, for I never had or could have any strong attrait for sacerdotal functions. But I felt that the Church in America was in need of all the help that could be given by her children for the work of the priesthood."
Father Hecker said this when near his end, and a full knowledge of his character bore him out in it. The sacerdotal, the ecclesiastical, were qualities which he had a.s.sumed with full consciousness of their sanct.i.ty, yet they united with his other characteristics in a way to leave traces of the point of contact. He was certainly an edifying priest, and to hear his Ma.s.s was to be spiritually elevated by his joyous fervor. But you would never say of him "he is a thorough ecclesiastic, he is a typical priest." The external aids of religion he imparted with a reverence which displayed his faith in his priestly character as a dispenser of the sacramental mysteries of G.o.d. But the other mysteries of G.o.d which are hidden in his providential guidance of men, he could expound with the instinctive familiarity of a native gift; the voice of G.o.d in nature, in reason, and in conscience, and its response in revelation, he could elicit with a power and unction rarely met with. He has left the following words on record: "After my ordination the duties of the sacred ministry appeared to me most natural; the hearing of confessions and the direction of souls was as if it had been a thing practised from my childhood, and was a source of great consolation."
The year spent in England after ordination was occupied by Father Hecker mainly in parochial duties at Clapham and some neighboring stations attended by the Redemptorists of that house. Father Walworth enjoyed some missionary experience with Fathers Pecherine and Buggenoms, but Father Hecker had only been at one or two small retreats--one at Scott-Murray"s estate in company with Father Ludwig and another at that of Weld-Blundells in Lancashire; but in neither of these had he preached or given any instructions, serving only in the confessional and in hunting up obstinate sinners. He certainly did preach once before leaving England, perhaps only once, and that was at Great Marlowe, near London, in the church built by the Hornihold family. It was on Easter Sunday, 1850, and was well remembered by Father Hecker and referred to in after years. He thought the sermon a good one as a beginning, but it seems to have given him no encouragement, and we venture to think that if it profited his hearers somewhat it also amused them a little. He needed a teacher, and he found one in Father Bernard, the newly appointed provincial of the American province.
In 1850 Father Bernard Joseph Hafkenscheid* was made Provincial of the Redemptorist houses in America. His patronymic was too formidable for ordinary use, and he was universally known as Father Bernard. He was in the prime of life on taking this office, and although he had spent twenty years on the missions in Holland, his native country, in Belgium and England, he yet showed no signs of these labors; he continued them for fourteen years longer, for the most of the time in the Netherlands, his death resulting from accident in 1865. By common consent he is ranked in the highest order of popular preachers. He had entered the community from the secular priesthood shortly after his ordination; he had made a brilliant course of studies at Rome, which was crowned by the doctorate of the Roman College. He was physically a tall, powerful man, and of majestic bearing. His features were full of intelligence, his glance penetrating, his voice clear, sympathetic, and vibrating, his gestures expressive. If half that is handed down of Father Bernard be true, he was a wonderful preacher of penance and of hope, his high gifts of natural eloquence served by a perfect education and inspired by a most enthusiastic love of the people.
[* The reader is referred to his life by Canon Claessens (Catholic Publication Society Co.) It is all too brief, yet is a good summary of the career of the great Redemptorist missionary, one of St.
Alphonsus" n.o.blest sons.]
He was a popular preacher in the best sense of the term, calm in demeanor and simple in language as he opened, but when at the point of fervor pouring forth his soul in a fiery torrent of oratory, whose only restraint was the inability of the human voice to express all that the heart contained. In style impa.s.sioned, he yet often chose language bordering on the familiar, but was not vulgar. He is an instance of the fallacy of the saying that the preacher must stoop to his auditory if he would be popular. Father Bernard was ever true to himself, never appeared less than an educated priest and grave religious, and yet he was a most popular preacher. The great truths of eternal life are a universal heritage, and the use of plain words is not getting down from good style even in the literary sense, and a familiar manner is a trait of affection. We have stopped the reader for this moment with Father Bernard because he was Father Hecker"s teacher of mission preaching and instructing, and was ever beloved by him as an appreciative friend and a wise and indulgent preceptor. He had made his first visit to America with Father de Held in 1845, but remained only a few months to acquire information and gain impressions for a report to the Rector Major. He made a second voyage in January, 1849, acting as superior of the American houses, as Vice-provincial, and remained about eighteen months. The United States now forming a separate province and Father Bernard made Provincial, he demanded Fathers Hecker and Walworth as his subjects, and they were given to him.
A letter from Father Hecker announces his departure for New York as fixed for some time in October, 1890; but delays occurred, and the following is an extract from one to his mother, dated January 17, 1851; it says that the departure is fixed for some day the same month:
"Oh! may Almighty G.o.d prosper our voyage, and may His sweet and blessed Mother be our guide and protector on the stormy sea. And may my arrival in America be for the good of many souls who are still wandering out of the one flock and away from the one shepherd! I hope that to no one will it be of more consolation and benefit than to you, my dearest mother."
The ship was named the _Helvetia_ and sailed from Havre the 27th of January, the captain being a genuine down-east Yankee, and the crew a mixed a.s.sortment of English and American sailors. Father Bernard"s party consisted of Fathers Walworth, Hecker, Landtsheer, Kittell, Dold, and Giesen, and the students h.e.l.lemans, Muller, and Wirth, the American fathers having come to Havre from London by way of Dover, Calais, and Paris. The weather was unfavorable during nearly the entire voyage, the ship being driven back into the English Channel and forced to anchor in the Downs. They were beaten about for two weeks before they got fairly upon the Atlantic, and while crossing the Newfoundland banks were in danger from icebergs. Nearly all the party were more or less sea-sick, including Father Hecker. This did not prevent his attempting the conversion of the boatswain, who seemed the only hopeful subject in the ship"s company. There were a hundred and thirty steerage pa.s.sengers, emigrants for the most part from Protestant countries, though a party of Garibaldian refugees and a few equally wild Frenchmen enlivened the monotony of sea-life by some b.l.o.o.d.y fights. There were but two cabin pa.s.sengers besides the Redemptorists, and the former being confined to their staterooms by nearly continual sea-sickness, the cabin was turned into a "floating convent," to borrow Father Dold"s expression in a long letter descriptive of the voyage, given by Canon Claessens in his _Life of Father Bernard._
The wintry and stormy voyage had already tested the missionaries"
patience for some weeks, when Father Bernard informed the captain that he and his companions were going to make a novena to St. Joseph to arrive at New York on or before his feast, March the 19th. "St.
Joseph will have to do his very prettiest to get us in," was the answer. And when the ship was still far to the east, being off the banks, and the weather quite unfavorable, and only three days left before the feast, the captain called out: "St. Joseph can"t do it--give it up, Father Bernard." But the latter would still persevere; and that night the wind changed. The Yankee ship now flew along at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. When the eve of St.
Joseph"s Day came they were wrapped in a dense fog, and the captain, dreading the nearness of the coast, hove to. When day dawned the fog lifted, and the ship was found to be off Long Branch, and a wrecked ship was seen on the sh.o.r.e; she had been driven there during the night. The pilot soon came aboard and they sailed through the Narrows and into the harbor of New York, having spent fifty-two days on the ocean. As they approached the city a little tug-boat was seen coming to meet them. It bore George and John Hecker and Mr. McMaster, whose cordial greetings were the first welcome the young Redemptorists heard on their return to the New World. They were soon at their home in the convent in Third Street, and on the sixth of April following the first mission was opened in St. Joseph"s Church, Washington Place, New York.
Here is Dr. Brownson"s greeting, from his home in Chelsea, Ma.s.s., received by Father Hecker soon after his arrival:
"My very dear friend, you cannot imagine what pleasure it gives me to learn of your arrival in New York. . . . I want to see you much, very much. You have much to tell me that it is needful that I should know, and I beg you to come to see me. Tell your superiors from me that your visit to me will be more than an act of charity to me personally, and that it is highly necessary--not merely as a matter of pleasure to us two--that we should meet; and tell them that I earnestly beg to have you come and spend a few days with me. I am sure that they will permit you to do so in furtherance of the work in which I as well as you are engaged, and I have a special reason for wishing to see you now. I would willingly visit you at New York or anywhere in the United States, but there is no place so appropriate as my own house. . . . I am more indebted to you for having become a Catholic than to any other man under heaven, and while you supposed I was leading you to the church, it was you who led me there. I owe you a debt of grat.i.tude I can never repay . . . Come, if possible, and as soon as possible."
At the Third Street house the new-comers found Father Augustine F.
Hewit, a convert from the Episcopal Church, in which he had tarried for a few years on his way from Calvinism to the true religion. He had been a secular priest for a short time previous to entering the order. He was directed to join the newly-formed missionary band, and was destined to be more to Father Hecker than any other man, and to succeed him as superior of the Paulist community.
After more than five years" absence Father Hecker thus finds himself in America, the land of his apostolate, a member of a missionary community whose external vocation is the preaching of penance, and the conversion of sinful Catholics to a good life. A mission is a season of renewal of the religious life among the people of a parish.
It is a course of spiritual exercises in which the principles of religion are called forth and placed in more active control of men"s conduct, and by means of which their emotional nature is stimulated to grief for sin, love of G.o.d, yearning for eternal happiness. The sermons and instructions are given twice, and sometimes oftener, each day, during the early mornings and in the evenings. These exercises are conducted in the parish church, but not by the parish clergy. The people see among them the members of a religious order, men set apart, by the interior touch of the Holy Spirit and the public approval of the church, for this particular work--powerful preachers, confessors as indefatigable as they are patient, priests full of masterful zeal, moving in disciplined accord together against vice.
The call they address to the people is the peremptory one: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Their words are given forth not from the usual pulpit, but from a platform at the communion railing, and in the presence of a high black cross set up in the sanctuary. They wear no surplice or stole while preaching, the only insignia of their office being a crucifix on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The bishop usually extends to them greater powers than are commonly given for reconciling sinners who have incurred ecclesiastical censures.
The Holy See empowers them to extend the most abundant spiritual favors in its gift in the form of indulgences, and the pastor informs the congregation several Sundays beforehand that he expects the entire Catholic population of his parish to attend the mission and receive the sacraments.
To be absorbed in such labors as above described was not the primary object of Father Hecker"s vocation, but he accepted his place joyfully as chosen by the evident will of G.o.d. The missionary life was never in his eyes what the reader might surmise it to be--a mere interlude in his career, a period of patient waiting. Such is far from having been the case. The missions are eminent works of Catholic zeal, and there is not any vocation known to the active ministry which may not commute with them on equal terms. Human nature has never felt influences more deeply religious than those set at work by missions, recalling the effects of the preaching of the Apostles themselves. Remorse of conscience, loathing for sin, terror at the divine wrath, confidence in G.o.d, sympathy for our crucified Saviour, the ecstatic joy of the new-found divine friendship, utter contempt for the maxims of the world, iron determination to love G.o.d to the end--these are the sentiments which, by the preaching of missions, are made to dominate entire parishes in a degree simply marvellous.
Nor can it be said that these dispositions are fleeting. Allowing for exceptions, especially in large cities, their permanency is often an evidence of the solidity of the motives which inspired them, as well as of the supernatural graces which gave them life. Every missionary will bear witness, as Father Hecker often did, that he has never a.s.sisted at a mission in which he was not profoundly impressed by the tears of hardened sinners. Every parish priest, however much he may regret the backsliding of some, will testify to the valuable results of missions among his people: the quickening of faith and the revival of supernatural motives, drunkards reformed, rest.i.tutions made, l.u.s.t cleansed away, families united, the church thronged with worshippers, saloons deserted. Father Hecker never thought that all this was too dearly bought by the dreary toil of the confessional, the discomforts of for ever changing residences and living in strange places, nor even by the growing nerve-troubles which the fathers are often subject to, from brains superheated over and over again in the burning fires of mission preaching. Father Hecker did not think the privileges of such a life too dearly bought even by the postponement of his proper apostolate, and was ever glad of his labors as a missionary.
They schooled him in public speaking. In his antecedents there was abundant reason for diffidence, and he knew full well that what was good enough language for an harangue to the Seventh Ward Democracy would be ridiculous in a Catholic pulpit. Nor was he deceived into the notion of his ability to preach because he could influence men in private. Conversation is not public speaking, and the defects of grammar, or any other such defects, if pardoned in an earnest and honest man in private interchange of views, if committed on the public rostrum are unpardonable and are usually fatal. Father Hecker found in the incessant practice of the missionary platform, and in the a.s.sistance of his present superior, exactly what he needed by way of preparation. Besides the mission sermon at night--the great sermon, as it was called--there is a short doctrinal instruction at the same service and a moral one on the sacraments or commandments in the morning. These became his share of the mission preaching, and the school in which he acquired that direct, convincing, and popular manner of discourse for which he was afterwards renowned as a lecturer.
We find the following among the memoranda:
"When I came over to America with Fathers Bernard and Walworth, Bernard wanted to know what I could do. Well, by that time I had given up all hopes of any public career. I couldn"t preach. My memory and intellectual faculties generally were so influenced by my interior state that theology was out of the question. The lights that G.o.d had given me about the future state of religion in this country were still clear as ever, but I thought that I should have to confine myself to imparting them to particular and individual souls whom the providence of G.o.d should throw in my way; for I was persuaded that the Redemptorist community was unfitted for the future work I had caught a glimpse of and I was entirely contented to live and die a Redemptorist, and was quite certain that I should. So, when Bernard asked me what I could do, I told him to get me some place as chaplain of a prison or public inst.i.tution of charity, as that was about all that I was capable of. But he thought differently.
"My first instructions on the missions were almost word for word given me by Bernard. I didn"t seem to have a single thought of my own."
To preach, whether to Catholics or to non-Catholics, one must learn how, and Father Hecker with all his gifts knew that this gift seldom comes from above except by way of reward for steady labor. The opportunity of the missions, and of Father Bernard as a guide, was eagerly accepted in lieu of the prison chaplaincy.
The missions also enabled him to know the Catholic people. The non-Catholics he already knew from vivid recollection of his own former state and from that of his early surroundings; Brook Farm and Fruitlands had completed his knowledge of the outside world; but the Redemptorist novitiate and studentate and his sojourn in England did not give him a similar knowledge of the Catholic people, priesthood, and hierarchy. To the average looker-on Catholicity is what Catholics are, and Catholics in America viewed from a standpoint of morality were then and still are a very mixed population. Why the fruits are worse than the tree is a sore perplexity even to expert controversialists, and Father Hecker had need to equip himself well for meeting that difficulty, a patent one in the rushing tide of stricken immigrants then pouring into America. The missions are an unequalled school for learning men. All men and women in a parish are made known to the missionary, for they walk or stumble through his very soul.
Nor can one fail to see the use of missions as an evidence to the non-Catholic public itself of the supernatural power of Catholicity over men"s lives. To practical people like Americans there is no oral or written evidence of the true religion so valid as the spectacle of its power to change bad men into good ones. Such a people will accept arguments from history and from Scripture, but those of a moral kind they demand; they must see the theories at work. A mission is a microcosm of the church as a moral force. It shows a powerful grasp of human nature and an easy supremacy over it. It is an energetic, calm, and clean-sweeping influence for good, bold in its choice of the most sublime truths of supernatural religion as the sole motives of repentance. And it uniformly achieves so complete a victory over the best-entrenched vices that non-Catholic prejudice is invariably shaken at the spectacle. And in America the pioneer work of the apostolate must be to remove prejudice. The character of the men who conduct these exercises, their courage, intelligence, devotedness, discipline, and ready command of the people; the indiscriminate humanity which rushes to hear them, to pray, to confess their sins, to listen with mute attention--long before day-break and in the hours of rest after work--all regardless of social differences or of moral ones, soon become well known to the public and generally excite comment in the press. All this contributes to prepare non-Catholics to hear from the same teachers the invitation which our Lord intended in saying: "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."
Furthermore, it was necessary that Father Hecker should be made personally known to the bishops and priests of the country. The time was coming when he would have a public cause to advance, and their approval is a necessary sign of divine favor. Now, the missionary is closely studied by them and soon is intimately known, for there are too many things in common between priests but that they can readily test each other. Before the Paulist community had been organized, Father Hecker had been the guest of the most prominent clergymen of the entire United States, and of many even in the British Provinces, and was a well-known man throughout the Catholic community. Meantime the humiliations of his study-time had been quickly recovered from, if they had ever been a real hindrance to public effort, and we find no sign of protest on his part or of request to be let off from giving instructions beyond his answer to Father Bernard as above recorded. As he loved his vows as a Redemptorist, so he loved the work of the missions, because they were G.o.d"s will for him; because they are a work of the highest order of good for souls; because the reputation of Catholicity is always raised in a community by a mission, and a good name is necessary for a controversial standing; because in them he daily learned more of men and of the means to win them; and because the members of the divine order of the episcopate and secular priesthood must be well known by him and he well known to them before any extensive work could be done among non-Catholics; and the missionary becomes a familiar friend everywhere he goes. Hence controversial sermons were sometimes preached during the missions, lectures of the same sort given after them, and during their continuance many converts received into the church. Father Hecker, as we have tried to show the reader, was a very observant nature, always learning lessons from life, and ready to try his "prentice hand on what material offered in the way of converting Protestants at every opportunity public and private.
Nevertheless, the missions could not be made the ordinary channel of direct influences for turning sceptics and Protestants to the true religion. The attempt to make them so, involving, as it does, a notable interspersion of controversial sermons, has never been tried by the Redemptorist or Paulist Fathers to our knowledge, and when done by others has resulted in not enough of controversy for making solid converts, and too little penitential preaching for the proper reformation of hard sinners among Catholics. Father Hecker fully appreciated this. He threw himself into the mission work just as it was with the utmost ardor, and learning from Father Bernard how to prepare the matter for the morning and evening instructions, his natural gifts, together with hints and suggestions from his brethren, supplied him with the best possible manner of giving them. The writer has often served on missions in parishes where Father Bernard"s new-formed band had preached in former years, and the testimony is universal that as a doctrinal and moral instructor Father Hecker was unequalled among missionaries. He was so frank, so clear, so lively, so impressible, and, in a certain way, so humorous, that he carried the people away with him. And he carried them all, high and low, learned and simple. With persons of education his homely words did not break the charm, nor did his simple but extremely well chosen ill.u.s.trations do so--all taken, as they were, from common life or the lives and writings of the saints. He never preached the great sermons and never aspired to do it. He never sought to arouse terror or to be pathetic. He always reasoned and instructed. In truth, he was not competent to deal adequately with such subjects as Death, Judgment, and h.e.l.l--that is to say, as they are preached at missions, for the emotions have honest rights on such occasions, and Father Hecker acknowledged his deficiency in emotional oratory. But, to tell you the qualities of true sorrow, or to show you how to make a true confession, to picture the manliness of virtue and the dignity of the Christian state, he was unsurpa.s.sed. And the general effect remaining after his instructions was always a bright understanding of just what to do for a good life, with many happy examples to aid the memory, together with a strong personal affection for the holy man who showed religion to be a most happy as well as most reasonable service of G.o.d. To his penitents in the confessional he was ever most kind and patient. "No school of perfection," he once said, "can equal the self-denial necessary to hear confessions well." G.o.d is now rewarding him, we trust, for the cheerful, often even bantering, words of encouragement he gave to the mult.i.tudes of poor sinners who knelt at his feet during the toilsome years he spent on the missions; and for the enlightenment and encouragement of his big-hearted influence, and for his trumpet notes of hope in the early morning instructions.
After the hard pounding of the night sermons it is always sought to pick the sinner up out of the dust and to hearten him by the early instructions, as well as to guide him to the precise methods and means of reform and of a good life for the future. As to the sacrament of penance, the saying of St. Alphonsus is a maxim with us all: "Be a lion in the pulpit, but a lamb in the confessional."
The reader must indulge us in thus dwelling so long on the Catholic missions, for we are inclined to say many words of praise of so lovely a life, in which the same men sow and reap a great harvest in the same week, expend their vitality in preaching the word and administering the sacraments and comforting sinners who are wholly broken down with the truest contrition.
In 1851 the American Redemptorists had before them a missionary field almost untouched. Public retreats had been given from time to time in the United States by Jesuits and others, but the mission opened at St. Joseph"s Church, New York City, on Pa.s.sion Sunday, 1851, was the first mission of a regular series carried on systematically by a body of men especially devoted to the vocation. The merit of inaugurating them is chiefly due to Father Bernard, who had no hesitation in getting to work with his three American fathers; though Father Joseph Muller, rector of the Third Street convent, and Rev. Joseph McCarron, the rector of St. Joseph"s Church, had something to do in arranging the details and in facilitating the work. Several Redemptorists from Third Street helped in the confessionals.*
[* Observers of coincidences will be interested to notice the arrival of the missionaries in America on St. Joseph"s day, under the Provincial Bernard Joseph Hafkenscheid, to open their first mission at St. Joseph"s Church, the pastor being Joseph McCarron, the mission having been negotiated by Joseph Muller, the rector of the Third Street convent. Father Hecker had a special devotion for St. Joseph.]
We have s.p.a.ce for only the following extracts from the brief record of the missions, preserved by the fathers. They ill.u.s.trate how earnestly Father Hecker worked. In the record of the second mission at Loretto, Pa., we find this:
The instructions and Rosary were generally given by Father Hecker, who received from the people the name of "Father Mary." . . . During the first few days the people did not attend well; but after Father Hecker had gone through the village and among a clique of young men who were indifferent and disaffected to the clergy, and the evil geniuses of the place, and after some fervent exhortations had been made to the people, they flocked to the mission and crowded the church.
At Johnstown, Pa.: After two or three days a man happened to die on the railroad, and all the men at that station, perhaps a hundred in number, accompanied the corpse to the church. Father Hecker seized the opportunity to address them and to give them a mission _ferveroso._ And the next day he went on horseback, accompanied by the pastor, Father Mullen (since Bishop of Erie), to several stations and addressed the men, inviting them to attend the mission. The result was successful. Procession after procession marched in, filling the church, and numbers of them stayed all day, lying on the gra.s.s about the church. . . . Father Hecker called out a noted politician, who had not been to the sacraments for many years until the mission, to receive the scapular as an example, and the good man did not fail to receive a plentiful supply of holy water from the vigorous arm of the said father.
The following entry in the record under date of February, 1852, made after a mission given in St. Peter"s Church, Troy, N.Y., will be of interest to missionaries, and to others who are observant of their methods: "At Youngstown, Pa., (the preceding December) the experiment of preaching from a platform had been successfully tried and was repeated here, as at other missions since (Youngstown). On the platform a large black cross, some ten feet or more in height, was erected, from the arms of which a white muslin cloth was suspended.
This use of cross and platform has thus been regularly introduced into the missions." Previously it had been the custom to erect a large cross out of doors in front of the church as one of the closing ceremonies of the mission.
Fathers Hecker, Hewit, and Walworth, led by Father Bernard, made a unique band of missionaries, one, we think, hardly equalled since they yielded their place to others. Each was a man of marked individuality, whose distinct personality was by no means obscured by the strict conformity to rule evident in their behavior. Fathers Hewit and Walworth were orators, differing much from each other, both full of power. Father Hecker was a born persuader of men, and could teach as a gift of nature, earnest in mind and manner. His two companions saw him learn by hard work how so to modulate his voice and to manage it and his manner as to exactly suit himself to his duties as the instructor of the band, while they delivered finished discourses at the night services, many of them masterpieces of mission oratory. Their very poise and glance on the platform stilled the church, and their n.o.ble rhetoric clothed appeals to the intelligence and to the heart in most attractive garb. In Father Hecker you saw a man who wanted to persuade you because he was right and knew it, and because he was deeply interested in your welfare. He sought no display, and yet held you fast to him by eye and ear. He had no tricks to catch applause, for he had no vanity. He said what he liked, for he was totally devoid of diffidence or awkwardness, and his best aid was his invariable equipment of an earnest purpose. "But I don"t believe," said Father Walworth to the writer, "that Demosthenes ever worked through greater difficulties than Father Hecker in making himself a good public speaker."