“We interpreted Christianity as altogether a social institution, its social side entirely overlapping and hiding the religious.  Dr. Brownson set out to make, and did make, a powerful presentation of our Lord as the representative of the Democratic side of civilization.  For His person and office he and all of us had a profound appreciation and sympathy, but it was not reverential or religious; the religious side of Christ’s mission was ignored.  Christ was a social Democrat, Dr. Brownson maintained, and he and many of us had no other religion but the social theories we drew from Christ’s life and teaching; that was the meaning of Christianity to us, and of Protestantism especially.”

In penning the reminiscences just given Father Hecker probably had in mind the whole period lying between his fourteenth year and his twenty-first.  In the autumn of 1834, when he first made acquaintance with Orestes Brownson, Isaac Hecker was not yet fifteen, while the reform lecturer was in his early thirties.  But the boy who began at once, as he has told us, to put philosophical questions, and to seek a test whereby to determine the validity of his mental processes, was already well known to the voters of his ward, not merely as an overgrown and very active lad, always on hand at the polling booths, and ready for any work which might be entrusted to a boy, but also as a clear and persuasive speaker on various topics of social and political reform.

Politics of the kind into which the young Heckers threw themselves so ardently were not very different in their methods fifty years ago from what they are to-day.  Reform politics are always the reverse of what are called machine politics.  The meetings of which Father Hecker speaks were spontaneous gatherings of determined and earnest men, young and old, held sometimes in public halls, sometimes, when elections were close at hand, in the open street.  Often they were dominated by leaders better able to formulate theories than to bring about practical remedial measures.  The inception of all great parties has something of this character.  It generally happens that principles are dwelt upon with an exclusive devotion more or less prejudicial to immediate practical ends.  This is why young men, and even striplings, provided they are energetic and persuasive, will be listened to with attention at such eras.  Men are seeking for enlightenment, and hence views are taken for what they seem to be worth rather than out of respect for the source they spring from.  Imagine, then, this tall, fair, strong-faced boy of fourteen, mounted, perhaps, on one of his own flour-barrels, dogmatizing the principles of social democracy, posing as a spontaneous political reformer before a crowded street full of men twice and thrice his years, but bound together with him by the sympathies common to the wage-earning classes.  It is true that Isaac Hecker and his brothers, of whom the eldest had but recently attained to the dignity