erning minds, took
carefully into account.

His fundamental principle of Christian perfection may be termed a
view of the Catholic doctrine of divine grace suited to the
aspirations of our times. By divine grace the love of God is diffused
in our hearts; the Holy Spirit takes up his abode there and makes us
children of the Heavenly Father, and brethren of Jesus Christ the
Divine Son. The state of grace is thus an immediate union of the soul
with the Holy Trinity, its Creator, Mediator, and Sanctifier. To
secure this union and render it more and more conscious was Father
Hecker's ceaseless endeavor through life, both for himself and for
those who fell under his influence, whether in cleansing the soul of
all hindrances of sin and imperfection, or advancing it deeper and
deeper into the divine life by prayer and the sacraments.

His doctrine of Christian perfection might be formulated as a
profession of faith: I believe in God the _Father_ Almighty; I
believe in Jesus Christ the Only Begotten _Son_ of the Father; I
believe in the Holy Ghost the _Life Giver,_ the spirit of adoption by
whom I am enabled to say to the Father, _My Father,_ and to the Son,
_My Brother._

He wished that men generally should be made aware of the immediate
nature of this union of the soul with God, and that they should
become more and more personally conscious of it. He would bring this
about without the intervention of other persons or other methods than
the divinely constituted ones accessible to all in the priesthood and
sacraments. It was the development of the supernatural, heavenly,
divine life of the regenerate man, born again of the Holy Ghost, that
Father Hecker made the end of all he said and all he did in leading
souls; and he maintained that to partake of this life which is "the
light of men," many souls needed little interference on the part of
others, and that in every case the utmost care should be taken lest
the soul should mingle human influences, even the holiest, in undue
proportion with those which were strictly divine.

"Go to God," he wrote to one asking advice, "go entirely to God, go
integrally to God; behold, that is sincerity, complete, perfect
sincerity. Do that, and make it a complete, continuous act, and you
need no help from me or any creature. I wish to provoke you to do it.
That is my whole aim and desire. Just in proportion as we harbor
pride, vanity, self-love--in a word, self-hood--just so far we fail
in i