A bishop on his way to Rome once called on Father Hecker.  “Tell the Holy Father,” he said to him, “that there are three things which will greatly advance religion:  First, to place the whole Church in a missionary attitude—­make the Propaganda the right arm of the Church.  Second, choose the cardinals from the Catholics of all nations, so that they shall be a senate representing all Christendom.  Third, make full use of modern appliances and methods for transacting the business of the Holy See.”  Sometimes he discussed the activity of modern commerce as teaching religious men a lesson.  He once said: 

“When Father Hecker is dead one thing may be laid to his credit:  that he always protested that it is a shame and an outrage that men of the world do more for money than religious men will do for the service of God.”

No glutton ever devoured a feast more eagerly than Father Hecker read a sermon, a lecture, or an editorial showing the trend of non-Catholic thought.  After his death his desk was found littered with innumerable clippings of the sort, many of them pencilled with underlinings and with notes.  These furnished much of the matter of his conversation, and doubtless of his prayers.  Once he wrote to a friend: 

“Nobody is necessary to God and to the accomplishment of his designs.  Yet at times I wish that I had the virtue that some creatures have; when cut into pieces each piece becomes a new complete individual of the same species.  I should cut myself into at least a dozen pieces to meet the demands made upon me.  What a splendid thing it is to think of our Lord going about doing wonders, eternal and infinite things, and all the time seeming to be unoccupied.  The truly simple soul reduces all occupations to one, and in that one accomplishes all.”

And his organizing faculty would busy itself in various schemes, which, if they could not cure his weak body, could relax with a fancied activity his tired soul.  Thus in a letter he said: 

“Why should we not form a league for the cause of our Lord, to whom we owe all?  Unreserved devotion to His cause with patience, perseverance, humility, and sweetness, are weapons that no man or woman or thing can withstand.  Our Lord has promised that if we believe in Him we shall do greater works than He did.  Let us believe in Him, and clothe ourselves through faith in Him with His virtues, and who shall resist us?

“The first of all successes is Christ’s triumph in our souls.  Everything that leads to this, humiliations, afflictions, calumnies, contempt, mortifications, all work for us a glory exceeding the imagination of man.  To suffer for Christ’s sake is the short-cut in the way of becoming Christ-like.”