tual sin.
And he would show that even hard sinners could often be brought to a
good life more surely, and be enabled more certainly to persevere, by
forcibly emphasizing the Incarnation and its benefits than by any
other method. Their blindness and selfishness hinder hard sinners
from easily appreciating our Lord's sufferings as borne on their
account. Father Hecker regretted that the idea of redemption was so
often presented in a way to give the impression that atonement was
the whole office of Christ. There are many souls for whom access to
Christ as Mediator was more in consonance with the truth than access
to Him as Redeemer, Mediator in that case including Redeemer, rather
than the Redeemer absorbing the idea of Mediator. Redemption from
original sin is, of course, necessary to the mediatorship of a fallen
race. But our Lord became Redeemer that he might be Mediator; he
cleansed us from sin that he might lift us up to the Godhead; and in
many souls Father Hecker knew that the process of cleansing began and
ended with original sin and venial sins. Such souls often go their
lives long with no compelling stimulus to perfection, because they
cannot apply to themselves the accusations of sin commonly put into
the directions for beginners.

Much has been already said of the aids to perfection which Father
Hecker perceived in a right use of the liberty and intelligence of
our times. He also insisted that the commercial and industrial
features of our civilization were no obstacles to a high state of
Christian perfection.

In a remarkable sermon, entitled "The Saint of Our Day," published in
the third volume of the Paulist series, Father Hecker, after making a
powerful exposition of the advantages of liberty and intelligence as
helps to the interior life, insists that the opportunities and
responsibilities peculiar to our civilization are capable of being
sanctified to the highest degree. The model he proposes in this
sermon is St. Joseph. He was no martyr, yet showed a martyr's
fidelity by his trust in God.

"Called by the voice of God to leave his friends, home, and country,
he obeys instantly and without a murmur. To find God and to be one
with God, a solitary life in the desert was not necessary to St.
Joseph. He was in the world and found God where he was. He sanctified
his work by carrying God with him into the workshop. St. Joseph was
no flower of the desert or plant of the cloister; he found the means
of perfec