for the supernatural, he was convinced, would be strong in proportion to the enlightenment of the natural reason; the need of the grace of God is, of course, most urgent in a sinful state, but it would be more quickly perceived in proportion to the possession of natural virtue.  As the exercise of reason is necessary to faith and precedes its acts, so the integrity of natural virtue is the best preparation for the grace of God.  Many pages of The Aspirations of Nature, from which the following brief quotations are made, are devoted to the dignity of humanity and the need of placing the excellence of human nature in the foreground when considering how man may attain to a high supernatural state: 

“Every faculty of the soul, rightly exercised, leads to truth; every instinct of our nature has an eternal destiny attached to it.  Catholicity finds its support in these and employs them in all her developments.”

“The Catholic religion is wonderfully calculated and adapted to call forth, sustain, and perfect the tastes, propensities, and peculiarities of human nature.  And let no one venture to say that these characteristics which are everywhere found among men are to be repressed rather than encouraged.  This is to despise human nature, this is to mar the work of God.  For are not these peculiarities inborn?  Are they not implanted in us by the hand of our Creator?  Are they not what go to constitute our very individuality?”

Humanity is a word of vague meaning to most ears, but to Father Hecker its meaning was a living thing of value second only to Christianity.  Here is his summary of the relation of Catholicity to human nature, taken from the same source as the foregoing: 

“Catholicity is that religion which links itself to all the faculties of the mind, appropriates all the instincts of human nature, and by thus concurring with the work of the Creator affirms its own Divine origin.”

We give the following extracts from letters of spiritual advice, to show Father Hecker’s views of mortification: 

“Exterior mortifications are aids to interior life.  What we take from the body we give to the spirit.  If we will look at it closely, two-thirds of our time is taken up with what we shall eat, and how we shall sleep, and wherewithal we shall be clothed.  Two-thirds of our life and more is animal—­including sleep.  I do not despise the animal in man, but I go in for fair play for the soul.  The better part should have the greater share.  The right order of things has been reversed:  con-version is necessary.  Read the lives of the old Fathers of the Desert.  They determined on leading a rational and divine life.  How little are they known or appreciated in our day!  Their lives are more interesting than a novel and stranger than a romance.”

“Self-love, self-activity, self-hood, is something not easily destroyed.  It is like a cancer which has its roots extending to the most delicate fibres of our mental and moral nature.  Divine grace can draw them all out.  But how slowly!  And how exquisitely painful is the process—­the more subtle the self-love the more painful the cure.”