thers, our soul, meanwhile, looking at higher
objects. . . . I feel that I have the stuff to do it in me. I would
love to work and beg my way to Rome if it cost me ten or fifteen
years of my life."

Thoreau replied to this proposal that such a tour had been one of his
own early dreams, but that he had outlived it. He had now "retired
from all external activity in disgust, and his life was more
Brahminical, Artesian-well, Inner-Temple like." So the scheme, which
had secured Bishop McCloskey's approbation, although he had forcibly
represented to young Hecker that to go absolutely destitute of money,
and dependent for all things upon alms, would be impossible, was
presently shelved. It was but one of the diversions with which
certain souls, not yet enlightened as to their true course, nor
arrived at the abandonment of themselves to Divine Providence, are
amused. Their inactivity seems idleness to them, and they mistake the
restless impulse which bids them be up and doing for the voice of
conscience or the inspiration of heavenly wisdom; but it is neither.
Sometimes it is a superfluity of natural energy seeking an outlet;
sometimes it is the result of the strain placed upon nature by a very
powerful influx of grace. The infusion of power from above is often
greatly in excess of the light necessary for guidance in its use.
This last rarely comes entirely from the inner touch of the Holy
Spirit. In the lives of the Fathers of the Desert we read of a
certain young brother, Ptolemy, who went astray from sound
spirituality. When admonished he asserted that he need learn the
spiritual life from none save the Holy Ghost, of whose inspirations
any man of good will could be certain. He was told by the old monks
that the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and the understanding of the
same are two distinct things, and that this understanding is
disclosed only to him whose will has been purified by the practice of
obedience and humility. In truth, it is rarely that the inner voice
of God does not call for an external interpreter, which, if it does
no more than furnish a divinely authorized test and criterion, is
none the less necessary. Moreover, the inner voice seldom provides
ways and means for its own purposes. Father Hecker was ever a
strenuous defender of this inner and outer unity of the Divine
guidance, and his vocation was an illustration of it. However
masterful the inner voice of God which called him away from the
world, he was