sion. But
just how He will do it, considering your bad habits, I can't see; but
that's none of my business."

Leave much to natural or acquired inclinations, was one of his
maxims. He was not deeply interested in souls who by temperament or
training needed very minute guidance in the spiritual life; to him
they seemed so overloaded with harness as to have no great strength
left for pulling the chariot. But he would not interfere with them;
he knew that it was of little avail to try to change such methods
once they had become habitual; and he recognized that there were many
who could never get along without them. At any rate he was tolerant
by nature, and slow to condemn in general or particular anything
useful to well-meaning souls.

"It is vain to rise before the light," was another motto. "Make no
haste in the time of clouds." These two texts of Scripture he was
fond of repeating. "When God shows the way," he once said, "you will
see; no amount of peering in the dark will bring the sun over the
hills. Pray for light, but don't move an inch before you get it. When
it comes, go ahead with all your might." Self-imposed penances,
self-assumed devotional practices he mistrusted. He was convinced
that the only way sure to succeed, and to succeed perfectly, was
either that shown by an interior attraction too powerful and too
peaceful to be other than divine, or one pointed out by the lawful
external authority in the Church.

When asked for advice on matters of conscience his decisions were
generally quick and always simple. Yet he often refused to decide
without time for prayer and thought, saying, "I have no lights on
this matter; you must give me time." And not seldom he refused to
decide altogether for the same reason. One thing annoyed him much,
and that was the blank silence and stupid wonder with which some
instructed Catholics listened to him as he spoke of the guidance of
the Holy Spirit as the way of Christian perfection, treating it as
beyond the reach of ordinary mortals, intricate in its rules,
"mystical," and visionary; whereas Father Hecker knew it to be the
one only simple method, with a minimum of rules, useful for all,
readily understood. What follows is a brief outline of the entire
doctrine in it practical use in the progress or the soul from a
sinful life onwards; we have found it among his memoranda:

"What must one do in order to favor the reception of the Holy Spirit,
and secure fidelity to His g