The following memorandum, taken over two years before his death, tells of a relief which he hoped would be permanent; but such was not to be the case: 

“Father Hecker said to-day:  ’Only within the last three days has God released me from the sensation that I might die any instant.  Oh! how I have suffered from that feeling for ten years.  I did not know whether I should ever be delivered from it.  Now, little by little God is lifting it off from my soul.  For ten years I have been under this cloud.  Oh, how terrible a suffering it has been!’ This he said, his hands covering his face; he had interrupted me to say it while I was reading St. John of the Cross.  ‘Oh!’ he added, ’how I could weep for my sins,’ and so on for a few more words.”

The clouds soon settled down again.  The following was noted a little over a month after the above: 

“Father Hecker said to me to-day:  ’There was a time when I seemed to know God so clearly and to be so conscious of His attraction that my whole thought and wish was death; to break the chain of life to be united to God in Paradise.  Now it is altogether different; nothing but darkness and depression.’”

Here is another memorandum, taken some time before the above: 

“Father Hecker said:  ’God is now visiting me with the profoundest desolation of spirit.  I have the most deadly terror of death; if I yielded to it I should tremble from head to foot.  Yet there is a spell on me which makes me wish that I may die without sensible faith and deprived of every present spiritual comfort. . . .’  He also said many things about his continued and unbroken desolation of spirit these several years back.  ‘Yet,’ said he, ’I never knew that God would permit me to come so near to Him and see so much of Him as I have.’  Then he made me read to him the first chapter of the Book of Job. . . .  After he had gone to bed I read to him part of an article in The Month on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and he discoursed meantime to me most profoundly on that topic.  And he added:  ’One reason why I have always been so much interested in the doctrine of the Holy Ghost acting in the soul is a practical one, because I myself have never had any other director, though I have more than once opened my mind entirely to others and profited by their advice, but none was or could be really my director.  Hence, too, I am so much attracted to saints who have had to struggle on alone like St. Catherine of Genoa, who was without a director for twenty-five years.’”

Towards the close of October, 1888, two months before death, Doctor Begen saw that the end was approaching.  This was evident from a sudden and general failure of strength, the appetite, not much at any time, seeming now to vanish quite away, although Father Hecker’s strong will forced down a little nourishment.  This loss of strength caused the heart to work badly and to give an occasional sudden alarm.  Internal