eturn of Father Walworth considerably relieved
the pressure, though the rapid growth of the parish and the widening
scope of the community's labors kept every one busy enough.

The newly-founded Paulist community was heartily welcomed by both
clergy and people. Missions were given in various parts of the
country, applications being often declined for want of time and
missionaries. Several prelates, among whom were the Archbishops of
Baltimore and Cincinnati, wrote to Father Hecker offering to
establish the community in their dioceses; Bishop Bayley, of Newark,
also wished to secure the Fathers, and he was especially urgent in
his request. One has but to know the intensely conservative spirit of
the Catholic hierarchy and clergy to appreciate how stainless must
have been the record of the Fathers to elicit such testimonials of
good-will just after they had fought a hard battle on the ground of
authority and obedience. As to the Catholic laity, the following
extract from a letter of the poet George H. Miles, whose early death
some years after was so deeply lamented, shows how they regarded the
new community. It was written from Baltimore under date of August 13,
1858:

"MY VERY DEAR FATHER HECKER: . . . Since we last parted you have been
to me one of those grand, good memories we take to heart and cherish.
I have loved you better than you could believe, for I felt that in
the extremity of sorrow or temptation you were the man and the priest
I would have recourse to, could my own wish be granted. You are not
wrong in considering me a friend; that is, if much love may atone for
little power to befriend. . . . _Providentially,_ it now appears, you
men have always had an individual force that detached you completely
from your _confreres._ To me and to the multitudes you were never
Redemptorists, never Liguorians, but Hecker, Walworth, Hewit, Deshon,
Baker. I mean to utter nothing disrespectful to the society which has
blessed this nation in training and developing you and your new body
of preachers, but I maintain that you stood so completely apart from
that society, so absolutely individualized, that, etc."

The three years following Father Hecker's return from Rome were
exceedingly active ones. The missions were maintained, money
collected for the purchase of the property and the building of the
convent at the corner of Fifty-ninth Street and Ninth Avenue, and,
after the opening of the new church in November, 1859, the r