e other hand, the more the Protestant
races expand, the more they will find the dwarfed Christianity which
they profess falling short of their aspirations, and by that means
they will be inclined towards Catholicity. It is not a little
remarkable that Father Hecker expressed himself thus during the last
years of the pontificate of Pius IX., at a moment when such ideas
seemed to be least in favor in high Catholic circles. But soon
afterwards the pontificate of Leo XIII. began, and with it a movement
in the spirit indicated by the American priest, and in a manner so
strikingly in accord with his views that Father Hecker seemed to have
been enlightened from above in his presages of the future.

Father Hecker developed a grand theological synthesis of what he
called the exterior and interior mission of the Holy Spirit in the
Church. He has explained it in a pamphlet; but how much more
impressive it was when he expounded it in person! We had the
privilege of hearing him do so in a long conversation with the most
celebrated Protestant minister of French-speaking countries, the
illustrious philosopher and orator, Ernest Naville. Father Hecker
said that the antipathy of Protestants for the Church arose from the
fact that they imagined that Catholicity reduced all religion to
obedience to external authority. Protestants, on the other hand,
pretend to place all religion in the interior life, directly
generated in souls by the Holy Spirit, and it is for this reason that
Catholicity impresses them as a tyrannical usurpation and a stupid
formalism. In this they are deceived, as a close acquaintance with
Catholics and with such writings as those of St. Francis de Sales and
St. Teresa soon proves to them. So, also, when they fancy that the
authority of the Church is not necessary to the preservation of the
action of the Holy Spirit in the soul. As a matter of fact, the
innumerable divisions of Protestants among themselves plainly show
that the interior action of the Holy Ghost does not extend to making
each individual infallible. To safeguard souls against deception,
scepticism or illuminism, there is need of another action of the Holy
Spirit which shall be conservative of the interior life. That other
action is exterior, and is exercised by means of the authority of the
Church. The Holy Spirit cannot be brought into contradiction with
Himself. By His action in the exterior authority of the Church He can
never interfere in the least