“It is a clear and bounden duty that every one should in some way or other compensate the world for that which he consumes from its store.  But I do not see how I can do this consistently with the present state of my mind.  To be sure I have contracted my wants as respects eating as far as seems possible to me; somewhat in dress, but not as far as I should and can do.  As for pleasures and many other causes of expenditure, I trust I am not immoderate.  In this part of the world I do not see any prepared, congenial conditions.  If I were in Europe, I should find in the Catholic Church institutions which I could enter for a time, until this period of my life would either fix itself permanently, or give place to another in which I could see my way more clearly.  But here I am, and not in Europe.  Some thoughts have arisen in my mind, and I will state them, as to what may come at some future time within the range of the possible: 

“If I am joined to the Catholic Church, and there is such an institution in Europe, may I not go there and live for a time?  Ah! is this possible?

“If we owned a spot of ground, I would be willing to go on it and engage as much of my time as possible in cultivating and improving it.

“Lastly, I do not know what effect the advice and influence of the Catholic Church may have upon my mind, and do have a slight hope that I may find the exact remedy that I need in my union with her.

“I feel the assurance that if I follow the Spirit of God, and place all my confidence in it, it will do for me what I dare not hope to do for myself.”

A day or two later he jots down, casually as it were, one of those profound observations which are like pointers to his whole career.  Occurring at this early period, when, as the reader may see hereafter, the germs of all his later thought and work were beginning to unfold, they are like rifts in the darkness which seemed to himself to lie about his future, and show plainly to the student of his life how straight and secure his path was amidst it all.  He had been counselling himself to patience and entire reliance upon God’s providence while waiting the opportunity “to create or procure the circumstances” necessary to the expression of his own individuality.  He felt that this was the especial task to which all men were called.  To use his own words: 

“It is for this we are created; that we may give a new and individual expression of the absolute in our own peculiar character.  As soon as the new is but the re-expression of the old, God ceases to live.  Ever the mystery is revealed in each new birth.  So must it be to eternity.  The Eternal-Absolute is ever creating new forms of expressing itself.”

In the next chapter we shall have occasion to give Father Hecker’s choice of an epitaph for Dr. Brownson.  We think that the sentences just quoted are worthy to be his own.