much hope of the widespread use of this
spirituality. But Father Hecker thought otherwise. He ever insisted
that it must come into general preference among the leading minds of
Christendom; for independence of character calls for such a
spirituality, and that independence is by God's providence the
characteristic trait of the best men and women of our times. God must
mean to sanctify us in the way He has placed us in the natural order.
He believed that the Holy Spirit would soon be poured out in an
abundant dispensation of His heavenly gifts, and that such a renewal
of men's souls was the only salvation of society. Some may think that
he was over-sanguine; many will not interest themselves in such
"high" matters at all. But some of the wisest men in the Church are
of his mind, notably Cardinal Manning. And the signs of the times, if
interrogated with regard to the problem of man's eternal destiny,
give no other answer than the promise of a new era in which the Holy
Ghost shall reign in men's souls and in their lives with a supremacy
peculiar to this age.

The following extract from _The Church and the Age,_ a compilation of
Father Hecker's later essays, shows his estimate of the form of
spirituality we have been discussing, as bearing upon the
regeneration of society in general:

"The whole aim of the science of Christian perfection is to instruct
men how to remove the hindrances in the way of the action of the Holy
Spirit, and how to cultivate those virtues which are most favorable
to His solicitations and inspirations. Thus the sum of spiritual life
consists in observing and yielding to the movements of the Spirit of
God in our soul, employing for this purpose all the exercises of
prayer, spiritual reading, the practice of virtues, and good works.

"That divine action which is the immediate and principal cause of the
salvation and perfection of the soul, claims by right the soul's
direct and main attention. From this source within the soul there
will gradually come to birth the consciousness of the indwelling
presence of the Holy Spirit, out of which will spring a force
surpassing all human strength, a courage higher than all human
heroism, a sense of dignity excelling all human greatness. The light
the age requires for its renewal can come only from the same source.
The renewal of the age depends on the renewal of religion. The
renewal of religion depends on a greater effusion of the creative and
renewing power o