farewell sermon.
Speaking of the dread of undue papal influence over the bishops in
the Council, he exclaimed: "All I have to say is, that if the Roman
Court prevail [in the deliberations of the Council], it is the Holy
Ghost who prevails through the Roman Court." But the tone of the
controversy on the subject of papal infallibility, which soon
deafened the world, was too sharp for his nerves, and he abstained
from mingling in it. As a matter of fact he determined to get away
from Rome early in the spring of 1870. If the reader would know what
we deem to have been Father Hecker's frame of mind about the
proceedings of the Council we refer him to Bishop J. L. Spalding's
excellent life of his uncle, the then Archbishop of Baltimore, whose
views of both doctrine and policy were, as far as we can judge,
shared by Father Hecker, who was his intimate and beloved friend.

But his stay in the Eternal City, at this time more than ever before
the focus of all religious truth, as well as the object of all human
expectancy, had not been uneventful. Very much against his will he
preached one of the sermons of the course given during the octave of
the Epiphany, in the Church of San Andrea della Valle, and later on
another, on an important occasion, in place of Archbishop Spalding,
who had fallen ill. Much of his time he spent with the American
bishops and the distinguished priests who were with them; he renewed
the old-time friendships of his stay in Rome twelve years before,
seeing a good deal of Archbishop Connolly, of Halifax, N. S.; he made
new friends, too, among whom he names especially Mrs. Craven, the
author of the _Recit d'une Soeur;_ and he formed acquaintance with
leading men and women of all nationalities.

"There is not a day passes," he wrote home, "that I do not make the
acquaintance of persons of great importance, or acquire the knowledge
of matters equally important for me to know; and I gain more in a day
than one could in years at other times. For we may say that the
intelligence, the science and sanctity of the Church are now gathered
into this one city. Yet my heart is in my work at home."

He had two private audiences with Pius IX., which, though of course
brief, were very interesting; the Pope remembered him, and expressed
his interest in him and his work in America. The following extracts
from letters to his brother George, written very soon after reaching
Rome, recall an old friend:

"I do not know whet