“During all the intimate hours I spent with him, speaking of his past life he ever once said that he had been a sinner in a sense to convey the idea of mortal sin.  And on the other hand he said much to the contrary; so much as to leave no manner of doubt on my mind that he had kept his baptismal innocence.  He was deeply attached to an edifying and religious mother; he was at hard work before the dawn of sensual passion, and his recreation, even as a boy, was in talking and reading about deep social and philosophical questions, and listening to others on the same themes.  He expressly told me that he had never used drink in excess, and that he had never sinned against purity, never was profane, never told a lie; and he certainly never was dishonest.

“The influence of his mother was of the most powerful kind.  He told me that the severest punishment she ever inflicted on him was once or twice (once only, I am pretty sure) to tell him that she was angry with him; and this so distressed him that he was utterly miserable, sat down on the floor completely overcome, and so remained till she after a time relented and restored him to favor.  Such a relationship is quite instructive in reference to the original innocence of his life.”

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CHAPTER II

YOUTH

It has been said already, in speaking of Father Hecker’s childhood, that he had been consciously under the influence of supernatural impressions from a very early period.  It seems probable, therefore, that at least during the few years which preceded his juvenile plunge into politics he must have been devout and prayerful, though doubtless in his own spontaneous way.  Such were his mother’s characteristics, and we find her son writing to her, when his aspirations after the perfect life had led him to the threshold of the church, that she, of all persons, ought most to sympathize with him, for he is about doing that which will aid him to be what she has always desired to see him.  But his devotions probably bore small resemblance to those of the ordinary religiously minded boy, either Catholic or Protestant.  He has said that often at night, when lying on the shavings before the oven in the bake-house, he would start up, roused in spite of himself by some great thought, and run out upon the wharves to look at the East River in the moonlight, or wander about under the spell of some resistless aspiration.  What does God desire from me?  How shall I attain unto Him?  What is it He has sent me into the world to do?  These were the ceaseless questions of a heart that rested, meanwhile, in an unshaken confidence that time would bring the answer.