To be absorbed in such labors as above described was not the primary object of Father Hecker’s vocation, but he accepted his place joyfully as chosen by the evident will of God.  The missionary life was never in his eyes what the reader might surmise it to be—­a mere interlude in his career, a period of patient waiting.  Such is far from having been the case.  The missions are eminent works of Catholic zeal, and there is not any vocation known to the active ministry which may not commute with them on equal terms.  Human nature has never felt influences more deeply religious than those set at work by missions, recalling the effects of the preaching of the Apostles themselves.  Remorse of conscience, loathing for sin, terror at the divine wrath, confidence in God, sympathy for our crucified Saviour, the ecstatic joy of the new-found divine friendship, utter contempt for the maxims of the world, iron determination to love God to the end—­these are the sentiments which, by the preaching of missions, are made to dominate entire parishes in a degree simply marvellous.  Nor can it be said that these dispositions are fleeting.  Allowing for exceptions, especially in large cities, their permanency is often an evidence of the solidity of the motives which inspired them, as well as of the supernatural graces which gave them life.  Every missionary will bear witness, as Father Hecker often did, that he has never assisted at a mission in which he was not profoundly impressed by the tears of hardened sinners.  Every parish priest, however much he may regret the backsliding of some, will testify to the valuable results of missions among his people:  the quickening of faith and the revival of supernatural motives, drunkards reformed, restitutions made, lust cleansed away, families united, the church thronged with worshippers, saloons deserted.  Father Hecker never thought that all this was too dearly bought by the dreary toil of the confessional, the discomforts of for ever changing residences and living in strange places, nor even by the growing nerve-troubles which the fathers are often subject to, from brains superheated over and over again in the burning fires of mission preaching.  Father Hecker did not think the privileges of such a life too dearly bought even by the postponement of his proper apostolate, and was ever glad of his labors as a missionary.

They schooled him in public speaking.  In his antecedents there was abundant reason for diffidence, and he knew full well that what was good enough language for an harangue to the Seventh Ward Democracy would be ridiculous in a Catholic pulpit.  Nor was he deceived into the notion of his ability to preach because he could influence men in private.  Conversation is not public speaking, and the defects of grammar, or any other such defects, if pardoned in an earnest and honest man in private interchange of views, if committed on the public rostrum are unpardonable and are usually fatal.  Father Hecker found in the