n the letters from different quarters, from good pious nuns,
and persons loving and serving and fearing God in the world, written
to me, and their writers all praying and doing works of mercy and
mortification for the purposes I had in view, you could not wonder at
my success. God did it. What is more, I was fully conscious of the
fact, and it is this that made my great joy.

"The Catholic Publication Society has the unanimous consent, and
sympathy, and co-operation of the entire episcopate and clergy. Every
year there is a collection to be taken up in the principal churches
for its support. I have drawn an elephant, but I do not feel like the
man who did not know what to do with him after he had got him."

"It is good in God to place me in a position in which I can act
efficiently. The disposition towards me is, I know, most pleasant and
favorable. I have been placed where I shall be at liberty to act and
direct action. Quietly pray for me as the Holy Spirit may suggest. On
my part I will also seek the same guidance. How good God is to give
it!"

The Council had hardly adjourned when it began to be plain that in
legislating for The Catholic Publication Society the prelates had
been over-stimulated by the zeal of Archbishop Spalding and the
personal influence of Father Hecker himself, who was present in his
capacity of Superior of the Paulists. He went among the bishops and
pleaded for the Apostolate of the Press with characteristic vigor,
and with his usual success. Aided by the archbishop, he lifted the
Fathers of the Council for a moment above what in their sober senses
they deemed the exclusive duty of the hour. This was to provide
churches and priests, and schools and school-teachers, for the
people. Already far too numerous for their clergy, the Catholic
people were increasing by immigration alone at the rate of more than
a quarter of a million a year. Every effort must be concentrated, it
was thought, and every penny spent, in the vast work of housing and
feeding the wandering flocks of the Lord. And certainly the magnitude
of the task and the success attained in performing it can excuse the
indifference shown to the Apostolate of the Press, if anything can
excuse it. But it seemed otherwise to Father Hecker, as it does now
to us. For the Catholic people could have been better and earlier
cared for in their spiritual concerns if furnished with the abundant
supply of good reading which the carrying out of Fathe