after a time relented and restored him to favor. Such a relationship
is quite instructive in reference to the original innocence of his
life."

________________________




CHAPTER II

YOUTH

It has been said already, in speaking of Father Hecker's childhood,
that he had been consciously under the influence of supernatural
impressions from a very early period. It seems probable, therefore,
that at least during the few years which preceded his juvenile plunge
into politics he must have been devout and prayerful, though
doubtless in his own spontaneous way. Such were his mother's
characteristics, and we find her son writing to her, when his
aspirations after the perfect life had led him to the threshold of
the church, that she, of all persons, ought most to sympathize with
him, for he is about doing that which will aid him to be what she has
always desired to see him. But his devotions probably bore small
resemblance to those of the ordinary religiously minded boy, either
Catholic or Protestant. He has said that often at night, when lying
on the shavings before the oven in the bake-house, he would start up,
roused in spite of himself by some great thought, and run out upon
the wharves to look at the East River in the moonlight, or wander
about under the spell of some resistless aspiration. What does God