ure, indeed, by the good
Providence of God, but not wholly repaired.

Father Hecker's affection for Dr. Brownson never wavered, and his
gratitude towards him was only deepened and made more efficacious
with the lapse of time and the growth of his own spiritual
experience. If they did not always agree, either in principles or in
questions of policy, they always loved each other. The memoranda
furnish an interesting proof of this abiding affection on the part of
Father Hecker. He was asked:

"Don't you think we might have a memorial tablet to Dr. Brownson in
our church?"

"Yes! Of all the men I ever knew, he had most influence over me."

"When you were in early life?"

"Yes, of course. Oh! in after life no man has had influence with me,
but only God."

This meant, of course, the influence of master upon disciple, and not
that of lawful authority or of fraternal love, to both of which
Father Hecker was ever very sensitive.

Speaking at another time of Brownson, he quoted this sentence from
_The Convert_ as so perfect an epitome of the man that it should be
put on his monument:

"I had one principle, and only one, to which, since throwing up
Universalism, I had been faithful; a principle to which I had,
perhaps, made some sacrifices--that of following my own honest
convictions whithersoever they should lead me."

And just here is found one of those points of essential difference
which it is interesting to note between these two men, so closely
drawn together by Divine Providence at one period, and in such a
relation that to the elder the function of guidance seemed to have
been appointed. In unswerving fidelity to conviction they were on a
par, but in native clearness of vision and instinctive aversion from
error they were far less closely matched. Brownson in early life had
tried, accepted, and preached various forms of aberration from true
doctrine. One might say of him, that, having found himself outside
the highway at his start, he gathered accretions from hedge and ditch
as he struggled toward the true road, and went through an after
process of sloughing them one by one. Perhaps that process ended in
making him over-timid. It was otherwise with Isaac Hecker. He, too,
had stopped to consider many doctrines which purported to be true;
more than that, he had recognized in each the modicum of truth which
it possessed. But the falsity with which this was overloaded was
powerful enough to repel him, in spite of