But from what has been said it must not be inferred that Father Hecker thought it safe to be without spiritual counsel, above all when the soul seemed led in extraordinary ways.  He firmly believed in the necessity of direction, and that in the sense intended by spiritual writers generally.  In practice he himself always consulted men of experience and piety.  We have seen how he sought advice, and was aided by it at every crisis of his life.  But he did not accept all that is said by some writers about the surrender of the soul to one’s father confessor.  He thought that confession was often too closely allied with direction, and he was convinced that many souls could profit by less introspection in search of sin, and more in search of natural and supernatural movements to virtue.  He condemned over-direction, and thought that there was a good deal of it.  He thought that there were cases in which spontaneity of effort was too high a price to pay for even the merit of obedience.  His sentiment is well expressed by St. John of the Cross in the ninth chapter of The Ascent of Mount Carmel:

“Spiritual directors are not the chief workers, but rather the Holy Ghost; they are mere instruments, only to guide souls by the rule of faith and the law of God according to the spirit which God gives to each.  Their object, therefore, should be not to guide souls by a way of their own, suitable to themselves; but to ascertain, if they can, the way which God Himself is guiding them.”

Leave much to God’s secret ways, was one of Father Hecker’s principles.  “When hearing some confessions on the missions,” he once said, “and when about to give absolution, I used to say, in my heart, to the penitent, Well, no doubt God means to save you, you poor fellow, or He wouldn’t give you the grace to make this mission.  But just how He will do it, considering your bad habits, I can’t see; but that’s none of my business.”

Leave much to natural or acquired inclinations, was one of his maxims.  He was not deeply interested in souls who by temperament or training needed very minute guidance in the spiritual life; to him they seemed so overloaded with harness as to have no great strength left for pulling the chariot.  But he would not interfere with them; he knew that it was of little avail to try to change such methods once they had become habitual; and he recognized that there were many who could never get along without them.  At any rate he was tolerant by nature, and slow to condemn in general or particular anything useful to well-meaning souls.

“It is vain to rise before the light,” was another motto.  “Make no haste in the time of clouds.”  These two texts of Scripture he was fond of repeating.  “When God shows the way,” he once said, “you will see; no amount of peering in the dark will bring the sun over the hills.  Pray for light, but don’t move an inch before you get it.  When it comes, go ahead with all your might.”  Self-imposed penances, self-assumed devotional practices he mistrusted.  He was convinced that the only way sure to succeed, and to succeed perfectly, was either that shown by an interior attraction too powerful and too peaceful to be other than divine, or one pointed out by the lawful external authority in the Church.