This half-confession of schism and frank avowal of lack of discipline on the part of a perfectly representative official of the Anglican Church was something singularly Providential, for it came within a fortnight after Isaac Hecker’s first interview with Bishop Hughes, described in the diary under date of March 22.  That powerful man and great prelate was a type of the best form of Catholicism at that day.  He was of the Church militant in more senses than one; and the military qualities which have inspired the public action of Catholic champions for the past three centuries were strongly developed in him.  That it was for the good of religion that it should have such characters as John Hughes to care for its public welfare there is no room to doubt.  Since then the temper of Protestant Americans has undergone a change which is almost radical.  It has grown infinitely more just and kindly towards Catholics.  The decay of the Protestant bond of cohesion from lapse of time and from the unsettlement of belief in its chief doctrines; the fighting of two wars, one of them the great Rebellion, which fused the populations of States and acquainted men better with their neighbors; the coming in of millions of Catholic foreigners whose every breath was an aspiration for liberty; the rise, culmination, and collapse of the anti-Catholic movement termed Know-nothing-ism; the polemical warfare of Bishop Hughes himself and of his contemporaries—­these and other causes have made it possible, nay necessary, to treat non-Catholics in a different spirit from what wisdom dictated fifty years ago.

If Dr. Seabury owned to schism and lack of discipline in Anglicanism, Bishop John Hughes brought out to Isaac Hecker the very contrary as the attractive qualities of Catholicity.  He was questioned by the young inquirer about the latter’s chances for studying for the priesthood should he decide on entering the Church, and he answered according to rigid notions of the place of authority in religion.

“He said,” are the words of the diary, ending a summary of the interview, “that their Church was one of discipline.  I thanked him for the information that he gave, and told him that it was for just such instruction that I sought him.  He seemed to think that I had some loose notions of the Church.  So far, this settles my present intention of uniting myself with the Roman Catholic Church.  Though I feel not in the least disinclined to be governed by the most rigid discipline of any church, yet I am not prepared to enter the Roman Catholic Church at present.  It is not national with us, hence it does not meet our wants, nor does it fully understand and sympathize with the experience and dispositions of our people.  It is principally made up of adopted and foreign individuals.”