“The blessings of God upon our missions were most evident and most abundant and my share in them most consoling, as usually the most abandoned sinners fell to my lot.  But holy and important as the exercises of the missions among Catholics are, still this work did not correspond to my interior attrait, and though exhausted and frequently made ill from excessive fatigue in these duties, yet my ardent and constant desire to do something for my non-Catholic countrymen led me to take up my pen.  That took place as follows:  One day alone in my cell the thought suddenly struck me how great were my privileges and my joy since my becoming a Catholic, and how great were my troubles and agony of soul before this event!  Alas! how many of my former friends and acquaintances, how many of the great body of the American people were in the same most painful position.  Cannot something be done to lead them to the knowledge of the truth?  Perhaps if the way that divine Providence had led me to the church was shown to them many of them might in this way be led also to see the truth.  This thought, and with it the hope of inducing young men to enter into religious orders, produced in a few months from my pen a book entitled Questions of the Soul. The main features of this book are the proofs that the Sacraments of the Catholic Church satisfy fully all the wants of the heart. . . .

“But the head was left to be yet converted; this thought led me to write a second book, called Aspirations of Nature; and which has for its aim to show that the truths of the Catholic faith answer completely to the demands of reason.  My purpose in these two books was to explain the Catholic religion in such a manner as to reach and attract the minds of the non-Catholics of the American people.  These books were regarded in my own secret thoughts as the test whether God had really given to me the grace and vocation to labor in a special manner for the conversion of these people.  The first book, with God’s grace, has been the means of many and signal conversions in the United States and England, and in a short period passed through three editions.  The second has been published since my arrival in Rome. . .

“On an occasion of a public conference (discourse) given by me before an audience, a great part of which was not Catholic, the matter and manner of which was taken from my second book, my fellow-missionaries were present; and they as well as myself regarded this as a test whether my views and sentiments were adapted to reach and convince the understanding and hearts of this class of people, or were the mere illusions of fancy.  Hitherto my fellow-missionaries had shown but little sympathy with my thoughts on these points, but at the close of the conference they were of one mind that my vocation was evidently to work in the direction of the conversion of the non-Catholics, and they spoke of such a work with conviction and enthusiasm.”

This last event occurred in St. Patrick’s Church, Norfolk, Va., in April, 1896, and is thus mentioned by Father Hewit in the record of the mission:  “Father Hecker closed with an extremely eloquent and popular lecture on ‘Popular Objections to Catholicity.’”