words of Jesus Christ, that it is better to
lose an eye and an arm and not fall into hell, than to save an eye
and an arm and be lost eternally.

The Council of the Vatican, Father Hecker maintained, by giving to
the principle of authority its dogmatic completion, has placed it
above all attacks, and consequently has brought to a close the
historical period in which it was necessary to devote all efforts to
its defence. A new period now opens to the Church. She has been
engaged during three centuries in perfecting her external organism,
and securing to authority the place it should have in working out her
divine life; she will now undertake quite another part of her
providential mission. It is now to be the individuality, the
personality of souls, their free and vigorous initiative under the
direct guidance of the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, which shall
become the distinctive Catholic form of acting in these times. And
this will all be done under the control of her divine supreme
authority in the external order preventing error, eccentricity, and
rashness.

The Latin races were fitted by nature to be the principal instruments
of the Holy Spirit during the period just passed. In the new one the
Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic races, of a nature strongly individual and
independent, will take their turn as instruments of Divine
Providence. This is not saying that the development of the Church is
the result of the natural aptitudes of races, but that God, who has
created these aptitudes, takes them one after the other, and at the
hours He chooses, and causes them to serve as instruments for
carrying out His designs. It was thus, from the fourth to the seventh
century, that He made use of the metaphysical subtilty implanted by
Him in the Greek genius, issuing in all those great definitions which
have fixed not only the substance but the verbal form of Catholic
dogma. Hence the first general councils were all held in the East.

Father Hecker cherished hopes for the conversion of the Teutonic and
Anglo-Saxon races. Doubtless God could convert them suddenly, but
considering the way heretofore followed that conversion will be
brought about insensibly and by the two following instrumentalities:
On the one hand, the new development of individuality in souls within
the Church will create a sympathetic attraction towards her on the
part of Protestants, who will discover affinities with her of which
they were wholly unaware. On th