From severe colds, acute headaches, and weakness of the digestive organs Father Hecker was a frequent sufferer.  But towards the end of the year 1871 his headaches became much more painful, his appetite left him, and sleeplessness and excitability of the nervous system were added to his other ailments.  Remedies of every kind were tried, but without permanent relief, and, although he lectured and preached and did his other work all winter and most of the following spring, his weakness increased, until by the summer of 1872 he was wholly incapacitated.  The winter of 1872-3 was spent in the South without notable improvement, and early in the following summer, acting upon the advice of physicians, he went to Europe.  “Look upon me as a dead man,” he said with tears as he bade the community farewell; “God is trying me severely in soul and body, and I must have the courage to suffer crucifixion.”  He also assured us that whatever action should be taken in adopting the Constitutions, then under consideration, had his hearty approval beforehand.  He was accompanied to Europe by Father Deshon, from whom he parted with deep emotion at Ragatz, a health resort in Switzerland.

Father Hecker remained more than two years in Europe, trying every change of climate and scene, and every other remedy advised by physicians, and returned to New York in October, 1875, with unimproved health.  He had derived most benefit from a journey up the Nile in the winter of 1873-4, and a short visit to the Holy Land in the following spring.  While in Europe his mind was busy, and he managed to meet many of his old friends there, and formed new and important acquaintances.  In February, 1875, he published his pamphlet, An Exposition of the Church in View of the Present Needs of the Age, which contains his estimate of the evils of our times, especially in Europe, and the adequate remedy for them.  On his return to New York he was too weak to bear the routine of the house in Fifty-ninth Street and lived with his brother George till the fall of 1879, when he removed to the convent, remaining with the community till his death nine years afterwards.

As to the physical sufferings of those last sixteen years, they were never such as to impair Father Hecker’s mental soundness.  He never had softening of the brain, as the state of his nerves before going to Europe seemed to indicate; nor had he heart disease, as was for a time suspected.  His mental powers were intact from first to last, though his organs of speech were sometimes too slow for his thoughts.  His digestion had been impaired by excessive abstinence in early manhood, dating back to a time before he was a Catholic, and his nervous system, also, had been injured by that means, as well as by the pressure of excessive work in later life.  Gradual impoverishment of the blood was the result, and the dropping down of nervous force, till at last the body struck work altogether.  Four or five years before his death Father Hecker became subject to frequent attacks of angina pectoris, said to be the most painful of all diseases.  During the sixteen years of illness every symptom of bodily illness was aggravated by the least attention to community affairs or business matters, and also by interior trials which will presently be described.