Even afterwards, when he had known human destiny in its perfect supernatural and natural forms, and when the means to compass it were in his possession and plainly competent for success, his memory reproduced the scenes and persons of Brook Farm in an atmosphere of affection and admiration, though not unmingled with amusement.  He used not infrequently to quote words heard there, and cite examples of things done there, as lessons of wisdom not only for the philosopher but also for the ascetic.  He was there equipped with the necessary external guarantee of his inner consciousness that man is good, because made so by his Creator—­inclined indeed to evil, but yet a good being, even so inclined.  Nothing is more necessary for one who is to be a teacher among a population whose Catholicity is of blood and family tradition as well as of grace, than to know that there is virtue, true and high in its own order, outside the visible pale of the Church.  Especially is this necessary if Catholics in any age or country are to be fitted for a missionary vocation.  That this is the vocation of the Church of his day was Isaac Hecker’s passionate conviction.  He was able to communicate this to Catholics of the old stock as well as to influence non-Catholics in favor of the Church; perhaps even more so.  More than anything else, indeed, Brook Farm taught him the defect of human nature on its highest plane; but it taught him also the worthiness of the men and women of America of the apostle’s toil and blood.  The gentle natures whom he there knew and learned to love, their spirit of self-sacrifice for the common good, their minds at once innocent and cultivated, their devotion to their high ideal, the absence of meanness, coarseness, vulgarity, the sinking of private ambitions, the patience with the defects of others, their desire to establish the communism of at least intellectual gifts—­all this and much more of the kind fixed his views and affections in a mould which eminently fitted him as a vessel of election for apostolic uses.

Before passing to the study of Isaac Hecker’s own interior during the period of his residence at Brook Farm, it is our pleasant privilege to communicate to our readers the subjoined charming reminiscence of his personality at the time, from one who was his associate there: 

“West New Brighton, S.I., February 28, 1890.—­DEAR SIR:  I fear that my recollections of Father Hecker will be of little service to you, for they are very scant.  But the impression of the young man whom I knew at Brook Farm is still vivid.  It must have been in the year 1843 that he came to the Farm in West Roxbury, near Boston.  He was a youth of twenty-three, of German aspect, and I think his face was somewhat seamed with small-pox.  But his sweet and candid expression, his gentle and affectionate manner, were very winning.  He had an air of singular refinement and self-reliance combined with a half-eager inquisitiveness, and upon becoming acquainted with him, I told him that he was Ernest the Seeker, which was the title of a story of mental unrest which William Henry Channing was then publishing in the Dial.