ants or Catholics. There was about
him an indescribable charm which mysteriously drew one to him and
penetrated one with his influence. Although he did not know French
thoroughly and preferred to use English, yet he spoke with such
power, elevation, exuberance, and depth of thought that he captivated
his hearers.

When I made Father Hecker's acquaintance I had just lost my eyesight,
being at the end of my ecclesiastical studies, and not yet ordained.
He did my soul much good by teaching me a kind of holiness which was
joined to lively intelligence and the most energetic activity. Father
Hecker remains to me not only the type of an American priest, but of
the modern one, the kind needed by the Church for the recovery of the
ground lost as a result of Protestantism and infidelity, as well as
to enable her to start anew in her divine mission.

II

The principal impression produced by Father Hecker on those who came
in contact with him was one of sanctity. In his company one felt his
whole being influenced as if by something venerable and supernatural,
and a constant inclination to correspond to the action of the Holy
Spirit and submit the human will to the divine. In conversing with
him about spiritual things one was transported into a higher region,
the heart growing warmer and the conscience more sensitive. Father
Hecker plainly inclined by habit to the type of character given us by
Jesus Christ. He suffered much, both physically from weakness of
nerves and morally on account of enforced inactivity, yet he not only
never complained but was always cheerful. This was the greater merit
in him because he seemed by nature impatient of opposition and
contradiction. He had a sagacious mind and easily discovered the
faults of others, but, although he spoke of men and affairs with
openness and candor, he yet ever sought for favorable interpretations.
Like St. Francis de Sales, he knew how to judge of people and yet
remain full of charity for his neighbor. Profoundly individual, and
profoundly attached to his ideas, like all Anglo-Saxons, and in fact
like all who have acquired the Protestant habit of free inquiry, he
nevertheless had for the Church a docility almost naive and
infantile; and this was because he recognized in her the authority
and the action of the Holy Spirit.

It may be said of him without exaggeration that he was every moment
ready, if it became necessary, to bear witness to the divinity of the
Church by ma