wrote to a
friend that he had studied that verse for thirty years and still
found that he did not know all it meant.

We give what follows as characteristic of Father Hecker's manner as a
director:

"At first, in all your deliberate actions, calm your mind, place
yourself in the attitude of a receiver or listener, and then decide.
Imperceptibly and insensibly grace will guide you."

"Don't care what people say; keep your own counsel. Use your own
sense and abound in it; as the apostle says: 'Let every one abound in
his own sense.' Don't try to get anybody to agree with you. No two
noses are alike, much less souls. God never repeats."

"Nobody nowadays wants God. Every one has the whole world on his
shoulders, and unless his own petty ideas and schemes are adopted and
succeed, he prophesies the end of the world. You are on the right
road--push on! Our maxim is: Be sure you are right and then go ahead!"

"How much that is good and noble in the soul is smothered by unwise
restraint! The whole object of restraint is to reject that which is
false and to correct the preference given to a lower good instead of
to a higher one. As for the rest--_freedom!_

"I know a man who thinks he don't know anything--who every day knows
that he knows less; and who hopes to know nothing before he dies. O
blessed emptiness which fills us with all! O happy poverty which
possesses all! O beatified nothingness which can exclaim, _Deus meus
et omnia!"_

It will have been seen by this time that Father Hecker's first and
fundamental rule of direction was to have as little of it as
possible. His method started out with the purpose to do away with
method at the earliest moment it could safely be done. To be Father
Hecker's penitent meant the privilege of sooner or later being
nobody's penitent but the Holy Ghost's. The following rules of
direction he printed in 1887:

"The work of the priesthood is to help to guide the Christian people,
understanding that God is always guiding them interiorly.

"An innocent soul we must guide, fully understanding that God is
dwelling within him; not as a substitute for God.

"A repentant sinner we must guide, understanding that we are but
restoring him to God's guidance.

"The best that we can do for any Christian is to quicken his sense of
fidelity to God speaking to him in an enlightened conscience.

"Now, God's guidance is of two kinds: one is that of His external
providence in the circumstances o