“With the hope that this note will reach you in due season, I greet you from this land from which Moses taught, and which our infant Saviour trod, with a right merry Christmas and a happy New Year to yourself and all the members of the community, all in the house, and the parishioners of St. Paul’s.  In my prayers all have a share and in the Holy Sacrifice of the altar.  My heart and its affections are present with you.  Could I realize its desire, I would shed a continuous flow of blessings on each one of you like a great river Nile—­the river which Abraham saw and whose banks were hallowed by the footsteps of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  Remember me especially in all your prayers on these great festivals.  Offer up a Mass for my special intention on each of them.”

The excursion to Nubia and back did him so much good physically, and left his mind with a peace which seemed so settled, that for a time he had strong hopes of recovery; but he was soon undeceived.

On the 15th of April Father Hecker left Cairo for Jerusalem, and spent some weeks in the Holy Land, continuing to enjoy an interval of spiritual relief.  He writes: 

“In reciting the Gloria and the Credo, after having been in the localities where the great mysteries which they express took place, one is impressed in a wonderful manner with their actuality.  The truths of our holy faith seem to saturate one’s blood, enter into one’s flesh, and penetrate even to the marrow of one’s bones.”

The first greeting which he sent from the holy places was a letter to his mother, full of expressions of the most tender affection and gratitude, as well as of ardent religious emotions produced by moving among the scenes of our Lord’s life.  He enclosed a little bunch of wild flowers plucked from Mount Sion.  He soon returned to Europe to escape the hot summer of Palestine, and began his round of visits to health resorts, shrines, and occasionally to a friend of more than usual attraction.  His brother John died about this time, and this news drew from him a letter of encouragement and condolence to their mother.  To George Hecker and his wife he wrote often, his letters being full of affection, of entire submission to the Divine Will, and of religious sentiments.

The following may be of interest as indicating the return of his disconsolate frame of mind: 

“I have taken to writing fables.  Here is one:  Once upon a time a bird was caught in a snare.  The more it struggled to free itself, the more it got entangled.  Exhausted, it resolved to wait with the vain hope that the fowler, when he came, would set it at liberty.  His appearance, however, was not the signal for its restoration to smiling fields and fond companions, but the forerunner of death at his hands.  Foolish bird! why did you go into the snare?  Poor thing; it could not find food anywhere, and it was famishing with hunger; the seed was so attractive, and he who had baited the trap knew it full well, and that the bird could not resist its appetite.  The fowler is our Lord.  The bait is Divine Love.  The bird is the soul.  O skillful catcher of souls!  O irresistible bait of Divine Love!  O pitiable victim! but most blessed soul; for in the hands of our Lord the soul only dies to self to be transformed into God.”