never succeeded in being really pathetic.

"It must be remembered that although Dr. Brownson was technically
classed among the reverends, he was not commonly so called. It may be
said that he was still reckoned among the Unitarian ministry, owing
mostly to his connection with Dr. Channing, of Boston, who took a
great interest in the Workingman's party. But I do not think he was
advertised by us as reverend or publicly spoken of as a clergyman. He
may have been yet hanging on the skirts of the Unitarian movement.
But his career had become political, and his errand to New York was
political. He had given up preaching for some years, and embarked on
the stormy waves of social politics, and had by his writings become
an expositor of various theories of social reform, chiefly those of
French origin. So that the dominant note of his lectures was not by
any means religious, but political. He was at that time considered as
identified with the Workingman's party, and came to New York to speak
as one of our leaders. The general trend of his lectures was the
philosophy of history as it bears on questions of social reform. At
bottom his theories were Saint-Simonism, the object being the
amelioration of the condition of the most numerous classes of society
in the speediest manner. _This was the essence to our kind of
Democracy._ And Dr. Brownson undertook in these lectures to bring to
bear in favor of our purpose the life-lessons of the providential men
of human history. Of course, the life and teachings of our Saviour
Jesus Christ were brought into use, and the upshot of the lecturer's
thesis was that Christ was the big Democrat and the Gospel was the
true Democratic platform!

"We interpreted Christianity as altogether a social institution, its
social side entirely overlapping and hiding the religious. Dr.
Brownson set out to make, and did make, a powerful presentation of
our Lord as the representative of the Democratic side of
civilization. For His person and office he and all of us had a
profound appreciation and sympathy, but it was not reverential or
religious; the religious side of Christ's mission was ignored. Christ
was a social Democrat, Dr. Brownson maintained, and he and many of us
had no other religion but the social theories we drew from Christ's
life and teaching; that was the meaning of Christianity to us, and of
Protestantism especially."

In penning the reminiscences just given Father Hecker probably had in
min