to the wants of the heart.  To some minds the truths standing alone compel assent; that is to say, the truths standing alone, and considered in themselves, demand the submission of my reason.  Among these truths, thus imperative, not the least is the need of the very Church herself, viewed in her action on men and nations—­viewed quite apart from the historical and Scriptural proof of her establishment by Christ.  Once the mind is lifted above subjectivism and is face-to-face with the truth, union with the Church is only a question of time and of fidelity to conscience.”—­Catholic World, November, 1887, “Dr. Brownson and Catholicity.”

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CHAPTER XIII

HIS SEARCH AMONG THE SECTS

HAD Protestantism possessed anything capable of attracting Isaac Hecker he would certainly have found it, for he made due and diligent search.  He was, in a manner, bound to do so, for the atmosphere in which he had been born and nurtured had not yet cleared so fully that he could say to himself with positive assurance that there was no safe midway between no-belief and Catholicity.

All the natural influences of his surroundings were such as to draw him to one or other of the Protestant denominations.  The power of example and precept in his mother tended that way.  The power of public opinion, in so far as it had any religious bearing, was Protestant.  The most intelligent and high-minded people he had enjoyed intimate acquaintance with were Protestant by birth and training.  True, most of these had fallen away from both the fellowship and the doctrines of orthodoxy; but while they had not the heart to point him to what had been their Egypt, still they had no Promised Land to lead him into, and were confessedly in the Desert.  Yet their influence was indirectly favorable to Protestantism as opposed to Catholicity, although no one but the ministers whom he consulted thought of urging him to identify himself with any variety of it until he showed signs of becoming a Catholic.

To this rule Brownson may appear as a partial exception, but until the summer of 1844 he was so in appearance only.  It is true that Isaac Hecker had learned from him the claims of most of the great forms of Protestantism, and got his personal testimony as to the emptiness of them all.  Brownson was a competent witness, for he had been an accepted disciple of every school, from sterile Presbyterianism to rank Transcendentalism.  Although of a certain testiness of temper, he bore malice to no man and to no body of men.  His testimony was in the presence of patent facts, and his condemnation of all forms of orthodox Protestantism in the end was unreserved.  But, up to the date given above he still made a possible exception in favor of Anglicanism.  In the middle of April, 1843, he wrote Isaac a letter, motioning him toward this sect, at the same time affirming