learned more of men and of the means to win them; and because the members of the divine order of the episcopate and secular priesthood must be well known by him and he well known to them before any extensive work could be done among non-Catholics; and the missionary becomes a familiar friend everywhere he goes.  Hence controversial sermons were sometimes preached during the missions, lectures of the same sort given after them, and during their continuance many converts received into the church.  Father Hecker, as we have tried to show the reader, was a very observant nature, always learning lessons from life, and ready to try his ’prentice hand on what material offered in the way of converting Protestants at every opportunity public and private.

Nevertheless, the missions could not be made the ordinary channel of direct influences for turning sceptics and Protestants to the true religion.  The attempt to make them so, involving, as it does, a notable interspersion of controversial sermons, has never been tried by the Redemptorist or Paulist Fathers to our knowledge, and when done by others has resulted in not enough of controversy for making solid converts, and too little penitential preaching for the proper reformation of hard sinners among Catholics.  Father Hecker fully appreciated this.  He threw himself into the mission work just as it was with the utmost ardor, and learning from Father Bernard how to prepare the matter for the morning and evening instructions, his natural gifts, together with hints and suggestions from his brethren, supplied him with the best possible manner of giving them.  The writer has often served on missions in parishes where Father Bernard’s new-formed band had preached in former years, and the testimony is universal that as a doctrinal and moral instructor Father Hecker was unequalled among missionaries.  He was so frank, so clear, so lively, so impressible, and, in a certain way, so humorous, that he carried the people away with him.  And he carried them all, high and low, learned and simple.  With persons of education his homely words did not break the charm, nor did his simple but extremely well chosen illustrations do so—­all taken, as they were, from common life or the lives and writings of the saints.  He never preached the great sermons and never aspired to do it.  He never sought to arouse terror or to be pathetic.  He always reasoned and instructed.  In truth, he was not competent to deal adequately with such subjects as Death, Judgment, and Hell—­that is to say, as they are preached at missions, for the emotions have honest rights on such occasions, and Father Hecker acknowledged his deficiency in emotional oratory.  But, to tell you the qualities of true sorrow, or to show you how to make a true confession, to picture the manliness of virtue and the dignity of the Christian state, he was unsurpassed.  And the general effect remaining after his instructions was always a bright understanding of just what to