In the middle of July Bishop McCloskey returned to New York, and Isaac waited upon him without delay.  Their first long conversation made it plain to the bishop that the young man had very little need of further preliminary instruction, and it was settled that conditional baptism should be administered to him within a fortnight.  That the nature of Isaac Hecker’s vocation also revealed itself to this prudent adviser is also evident from this entry, made in the diary as soon as the visit was ended: 

“He said that my life would lead me to contemplation, and that in this country the Church was so situated as to require them all to be active.  I did not speak further on this subject with him.  He asked whether I felt like devoting myself to the order of the priesthood, and undergoing their discipline, self-denial, etc., and becoming a missionary.  I answered that all I could say was that I wished to live the life given me, and felt like sacrificing all things to this; but could not say that the priesthood would be the proper place for me.

“I feel that if, for a certain length of time, and under the discipline of the Church, I could have the conditions for leading the life of contemplation, it would be what the Spirit now demands.  Whether I shall not be compelled back to this if I attempt to follow some other way, I am not perfectly sure.  The bishop intimated that in Europe there were brotherhoods congenial to the state of mind that I am in.  If so, and I could remain there for a certain length of time, why should I not go?  I will inquire further about it when next I speak with the bishop.

“There is a college at Fordham where there is to be a commencement to-morrow, which the bishop invited me to go and see.  Perhaps I shall find this place to be suitable, and may be led to examine and try it.  The Lord knows all; into His hands I resign myself.”

His impressions of the Catholic college at Fordham he does not record.  The next entry in the diary is, as usual, taken up with the large topics which for the most part excluded particular incidents from mention.  What his strict abstinence from permitted pleasures, and the rigorous self-discipline which he had so long practised, meant to himself, may be partly gathered from the extract we are about to give.  He says he does not call such denial,

“in strict language, the denial of our true, God-created, immortal self, but the denial of that which is not myself, but which has usurped the place of my true, eternal, heavenly, Adamic being.  It is the restoration of that defaced image of God to its primitive divine beauty, grace, and sweetness.  We must feel and possess the love and light from above before we have the disposition and power to deny the body and the wisdom of this world.  If we have the Christ-spirit, we will fulfil the Christ-commands.

“Thus was it with man prior to his spiritual death, his fall.  He lived in and enjoyed God, and was in communion and society with angels, not knowing good and evil.  His life was spontaneous; his wisdom intuitive; he was unconscious of it, even as we would be of light were there no darkness.  We should see it and be recipients of all its blessings without knowing its existence.  But darkness came, and man knew.  Alas! in knowing he lost all that he possessed before.