intelligence, and enjoys the gratification of its best and purest
moral instincts. These convictions are the keynote of Father Hecker's
controversial discourses and writings, notably of two books,
_Aspirations of Nature_ and _Questions of the Soul._ He assumed that
the American people are naturally Catholic, and he labored with this
proposition constantly before his mind. It is the assumption upon
which all must labor who sincerely desire to make America Catholic.

He laid stress on the natural and social virtues. The American people
hold these in highest esteem. They are the virtues that are most
apparent, and are seemingly the most needed for the building up and
the preservation of an earthly commonwealth. Truthfulness, honesty in
business dealings, loyalty to law and social order, temperance,
respect for the rights of others, and the like virtues are prescribed
by reason before the voice of revelation is heard, and the absence of
specifically supernatural virtues has led the non-Catholic to place
paramount importance upon them. It will be a difficult task to
persuade the American that a church which will not enforce those
primary virtues can enforce others which she herself declares to be
higher and more arduous, and as he has implicit confidence in the
destiny of his country to produce a high order of social existence,
his first test of a religion will be its powers in this direction.
This is according to Catholic teaching. Christ came not to destroy,
but to perfect what was in man, and the graces and truths of
revelation lead most securely to the elevation of the life that is,
no less than to the gaining of the life to come. It is a fact,
however, that in other times and other countries the Church has been
impeded in her social work, and certain things or customs of those
times and countries, transplanted upon American soil and allowed to
grow here under a Catholic name, will do her no honor among