ighest estimate of his holiness, and mourned him with the mingled
sorrow and joy with which saints are mourned. The reader should get
Father Hewit's Memoir of Father Baker if he would know his virtues.
Father Hecker was often heard to say that few men understood his
ideas so clearly as did Father Baker and had so much sympathy with
them. And his death was the signal for an impulse whose power plainly
indicated its supernatural origin. Up to that time there had been but
two priests added to the community, and those who had offered
themselves as novices and been rejected were, as a rule, little
calculated to inspire hope. But from 1865 onwards good subjects,
mostly converts, applied in sufficient numbers, and in a few years
the missions were resumed. But what was of even more importance, the
apostolate of the press, started in the publication of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD the month in which Father Baker's death occurred, assumed a
national prominence, and together with the Catholic Tracts and the
Catholic Publication Society set the Paulists at work in their
primary vocation, the conversion of non-Catholics to the true
religion. To this, and to Father Hecker's lectures, we now turn. Of
course we might dwell longer on the parish and the missions, about
which there are many things of interest left untold, but only the
lapse of time can sufficiently dissociate them from living persons to
allow of their being made public.

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CHAPTER XXIX

FATHER HECKER'S LECTURES

THE suspension of the missions, if it was the result of necessity,
was yet an aid to Father Hecker in devoting himself to public
speaking in the interests of the Catholic faith. Between missions, it
is true, he seized every favorable opportunity to address audiences
on controversial topics, often doing so in public halls, as well as
in churches. Meantime he could still further mature his plans, and,
testing his methods by experiment, secure for future occasions a
course of lectures fully suited to the end he had in view. More than
ever did he study to fit himself for his apostolate. How, he asked
himself, shall the living word be framed anew for our new people? How
shall religious teaching be suited to the special needs of this age
without detracting from the integrity and the venerable antiquity of
the truth? He sought to answer these questions by recalling his own
early difficulties, and by opening his soul to the voices of
struggling h