zeal for the
natural virtues, and strengthened his advocacy of human innocence.
The craving for the supernatural, he was convinced, would be strong
in proportion to the enlightenment of the natural reason; the need of
the grace of God is, of course, most urgent in a sinful state, but it
would be more quickly perceived in proportion to the possession of
natural virtue. As the exercise of reason is necessary to faith and
precedes its acts, so the integrity of natural virtue is the best
preparation for the grace of God. Many pages of _The Aspirations of
Nature,_ from which the following brief quotations are made, are
devoted to the dignity of humanity and the need of placing the
excellence of human nature in the foreground when considering how man
may attain to a high supernatural state:

"Every faculty of the soul, rightly exercised, leads to truth; every
instinct of our nature has an eternal destiny attached to it.
Catholicity finds its support in these and employs them in all her
developments."

"The Catholic religion is wonderfully calculated and adapted to call
forth, sustain, and perfect the tastes, propensities, and
peculiarities of human nature. And let no one venture to say that
these characteristics which are everywhere found among men are to be
repressed rather than encouraged. This is to despise human nature,
this is to mar the work of God. For are not these peculiarities
inborn? Are they not implanted in us by the hand of our Creator? Are
they not what go to constitute our very individuality?"

Humanity is a word of vague meaning to most ears, but to Father
Hecker its meaning was a living thing of value second only to
Christianity. Here is his summary of the relation of Catholicity to
human nature, taken from the same source as the foregoing:

"Catholicity is that religion which links itself to all the faculties
of the mind, appropriates all the instincts of human nature, and by
thus concurring with the work of the Creator affirms its own Divine
origin."

We give the following extracts from letters of spiritual advice, to
show Father Hecker's views of mortification:

"Exterior mortifications are aids to interior life. What we take from
the body we give to the spirit. If we will look at it closely,
two-thirds of our time is taken up with what we shall eat, and how we
shall sleep, and wherewithal we shall be clothed. Two-thirds of our
life and more is animal--including sleep. I do not despise the animal