acious
in varying the application of religious influences according to
temperament and spiritual gifts. Under him the danger of formalism,
which occurs to one's mind immediately as the incessant round of
exercises is mentioned, was rendered remote; for he gave his
instructions, and especially used the chapter of faults, in a way to
infuse into the souls of the novices the ever-recurring freshness of
individual initiative. His model (after St. Alphonsus) was St.
Francis de Sales. He followed him constantly in his doctrine and
methods, and often spoke of him and quoted him. Of other methods and
their advocates he spoke respectfully, but, however much they were in
vogue, he did not follow them. Brother Hecker was a faithful student
in his school and learned much from Father Othmann. The latter
especially insisted on the principle of accepting Providence as the
chief dispenser of mortifications. He had no objection to
self-imposed spiritual exercises, but he did not positively favor
them. He taught his young men that the traditional practices of
devout souls as embraced in the routine of the novitiate, were good
mainly to break the resistance of corrupt nature and render their
souls pliant subjects of the Divine guidance in the interior life, as
well as submissive to the order of God in the events of His external
Providence.

The assistant novice-master, who took Father Othmann's place during
his absence, was a Walloon. His name we have been unable to discover,
but he was a holy priest, held up to the novices as their model and
esteemed by them as the saint of the novitiate. He was a very
pleasant man withal, and no doubt added in every way to the fruits of
the long year of spiritual trial.

When Isaac Hecker presented himself as a novice he took his place
among the youths learning the A, B, C of the spiritual life, while he
himself had experienced for many months the most rare dealings of the
Holy Ghost with the soul. This could not fail to come to the
knowledge of Father Othmann, and, taken with the other peculiarities
of his subject, to elicit his most skilful treatment. "Pere Othmann,
my novice-master," said Father Hecker, in after years, "had a right
to be puzzled by me, and so he watched me more than he did the
others." He watched and studied him and gradually applied the two
sovereign tests of genuine spirituality, obedience and humiliation.
These were all the more efficacious in this case, because Brother
Hecker