“It will be seen, then, what kind of man Dr. Brownson first met as the official exponent of Catholicity, one hardly capable of properly understanding and dealing with a mind like his; for he was one who had come into the possession of the full truth not so much from hatred of error as from love of truth.  Brownson’s soul was intensely faithful to its personal convictions, faithful unto heroism—­for that is the temper of men who seek the whole truth free from cowardice, or narrowness, or bias.  He has admitted that the effect of his intercourse with the bishop was not fortunate.  He confesses that he forced him to adopt a line of public controversy foreign to his genius, and one which had not brought him into the Church, and perhaps could not have done so.”

The memoranda contain a more familiar account of this interview: 

“I presented myself for instruction and reception into the Church at the episcopal residence, and was received by the old bishop, Fenwick.  He questioned me on the essential doctrines and found me as I was; that is, firm as a rock and perfectly clear in my belief.  Then he said, ‘You had better see Bishop John.’  I did so.  He tried to get me started on questions of modern theology such as he suspected I might be (as he would doubtless think, knowing my antecedents) unsound on; for example, rights of property, etc.  I refused to speak my sentiments on them.  I said I had no difficulties about anything to submit to him.  I knew the Catholic faith and wished to be received into the Church at once.  I had come seeking the means to save my soul, and I wanted nothing from him but to be prepared for baptism.”

More interesting than either of these narrations is the following conversation, recorded on July 4, 1884.  Besides furnishing a very explicit answer to a question which may occur to some minds, as to why a man who always took such a hopeful view of human nature as Isaac Hecker did, should not have been repelled from Catholicity by the doctrine of original sin, it adds some further particulars to the meagre array of facts in our possession: 

“Suppose,” he was asked, “that the deliverances of the Council of Trent on original sin, and the theories of Bellarmine on that doctrine, had been offered you during your transition period:  what would you have thought of them?”

“I would have received them readily enough.  Why, the book I took to Concord to study was the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which has the strongest kind of statement of that doctrine.  Bellarmine’s formula of nudus and nudatus would have opened my eyes amazingly to a solution of the whole difficulty."*

[* Reference is here made to a very famous saying of Bellarmine’s in explanation of a prevalent teaching on original sin.  According to that teaching, if Adam had been originally constituted in a state of pure nature, devoid of supernatural gifts and graces, his spiritual condition might be described as naked—­nudus. On the other hand, man as now born is nudatus, stripped of those gifts and graces, suffering the penal privation of them on account of Adam’s sin.