Him, when, according to the fable, we put our shoulder to the wheel,
when we use what we have by nature to the utmost, at the same time
that we look out for what is beyond nature in the confidence of faith
and hope." Lately a witty French writer pictures to us the pious
friends of the leading Catholic layman of France, De Mun, kneeling in
spiritual retreat when their presence is required in front of the
enemy. The Catholic of the nineteenth century all over the world is
too quiet, too easily resigned to "the will of God," attributing to
God the effects of his own timidity and indolence. Father Hecker
rolled up his sleeves and "pitched in" with desperate resolve. He
fought as for very life. Meet him anywhere or at any time, he was at
work or he was planning to work. He was ever looking around to see
what might be done. He did with a rush the hard labor of a missionary
and of a pastor, and he went beyond it into untrodden pathways. He
hated routine. He minded not what others had been doing, seeking only
what he himself might do. His efforts for the diffusion of Catholic
literature, THE CATHOLIC WORLD, his several books, the Catholic
tracts, tell his zeal and energy. A Catholic daily paper was a
favorite design to which he gave no small measure of time and labor.
He anticipated by many years the battlings of our temperance
apostles. The Paulist pulpit opened death-dealing batteries upon the
saloon when the saloon-keeper was the hero in state and church. The
Catholic University of America found in him one of its warmest
advocates. His zeal was as broad as St. Paul's, and whoever did good
was his friend and received his support. The walls of his parish, or
his order, did not circumscribe for him God's Church. His choice of a
patron saint--St. Paul--reveals the fire burning within his soul. He
would not, he could not be idle. On his sick-bed, where he lay the
greater part of his latter years, he was not inactive. He wrote
valuable articles and books, and when unable to write, he dictated.