he Gentiles was chosen as patron, and the name
selected was, The Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle, which
has been popularized into Paulists. The habit agreed upon was in form
somewhat like that of the students of the Propaganda in Rome, black
throughout, with a narrow linen collar and buttoned across the
breast, being held at the waist by a cincture.

The Programme of Rule adopts an order of spiritual exercises similar
to that observed by the Fathers while Redemptorists. A perpetual
voluntary agreement takes the place of the vows as the security of
stability, the members affirming that they are fully determined to
promote their sanctification by leading a life in all essential
respects similar to that led in the religious orders. Besides the
chastity imposed upon them by the priesthood the other evangelical
counsels of obedience and poverty are adopted and their observance
enjoined upon the members, together with the daily and periodical
exercises of community life. As to the external vocation, the
missions are named as the basis of general apostolic labors, and
parish work also, though in a subordinate degree. The entire document
looks forward to a complete Rule to be drawn up and submitted to the
Holy See at a future day, for which it actually furnished the
outlines some twenty years afterwards. The approval of the Programme
of a Rule by the Archbishop of New York gave the Fathers the
canonical status anticipated by the decree _Nuper nonnulli._ This was
confirmed by an official permission of the Holy See to the Archbishop
of New York to establish the Paulist Institute in his diocese, with
the consent of his suffragans, which was asked for and obtained.

A little more than a fortnight after these events Father Hecker wrote
as follows to a friend:

"Before leaving Rome our Holy Father Pius IX. gave us his special
blessing for the commencement of our new organization, promised us
any privileges we might need to carry on our missionary labors, and
held out the hope of his sanction, in proper time, of the rules which
we might make. In my last visit to his Eminence Cardinal Barnabo he
gave me advice how to organize, what steps were to be taken from time
to time, and expressed a most lively interest in our undertaking. The
same did Monsignor Bedini. On my return we organized as advised,
wrote out an outline of our new institution and submitted it to the
ordinary of this diocese, the initiatory step of all such