.

"Father Hewit's letter, confirming your readiness to share your
fortunes with me, was most consoling and strengthening. God knows we
seek only His interest and glory and are ready to suffer anything
rather than offend Him. . . .

"We should take our present missions as the basis of our unity and
activity; at the same time not be exclusively restricted to them, but
leave ourselves at liberty to adapt ourselves to the [religious]
wants which may present themselves in our country. Were the question
presented to me to restrict myself exclusively to missions, in that
case I should feel in conscience bound to obtain from holy men a
decision on the question whether God had not pointed out another
field for me. . . . Taking our missions and our present mode of life
as the groundwork, the rest will have to be left to Divine
Providence, the character of the country, and our own spirit of faith
and good common sense."

In the same letter, that of December 25, he hopes that if the Holy
See separates them from old affiliations they will form a society
"which would embody in its life what is good in the American people
in the natural order and adapt itself to answer the great wants of
our people in the spiritual order. I must confess to you frankly that
thoughts of this kind do occupy my mind, and day by day they appear
to me to come more clearly from heaven. I cannot refuse to entertain
them without resisting what appear to me the inspirations of God. You
know that these are not new opinions hastily adopted. From the
beginning of my Catholic life there seemed always before me, but not
distinctly, some such work, and it is indicated both in _Questions of
the Soul_ and _Aspirations of Nature._ And I cannot resist the
thought that my present peculiar position is or may be providential
to further some such undertaking. . . . It might be imagined that
these views were but a ruse of the devil to thwart our common cause
and future prospects. To this I have only to answer that the old
rascal has been a long time at work to reach this point. If it be he,
I shall head him off because all that regards my personal vocation I
shall submit to wise and holy men and obey what they tell me."

Father Hecker had his first audience with Pius IX., after much delay,
on December 22. "I felt," he said, in giving an account of it in
after years, "that my trouble in Rome was the great crisis in my
life. I had one way of telling that I was not like Ma