The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1892-12-10


ing them to successfully carry out the
blessed work they have so auspiciously
undertaken.
THE PAULIST ORDER.
Its Founder, Father Hecker, was Convert
to the Catholic Faith.
It is little singular, considering the
strong temperance position Of the Paul
list Order and their equally strong Amer
ioanism "a majority of them being con-
verts,) that their founder, Father Isaac
T. Hecker, was grandson of Prussian
and Lutheran brewer. OF his grand
father, who emigrated to America late
in the last century, this incident is re-.
lated:
He had true German fondness for
old ways and settled customs, and to the
end of his days spoke only his own YER
nacular.
"Why don't you talk English" some
body once asked him toward the close of
his life.
81 don't know how he answered. II
never had time to learn J.
"Why, how long have you been here?"
"About forty years."
"Forty years And isn't that time
enough to learn English in?"
ssWhat can one learn in forty years?'
said the old man, with an unanswerable
twinkle.
Father Heclxer was born in New York
city in 1919, and with his three brothers
worked as a baker. But he was an omni-
vorous reader; he knew the grounds of
every social, political aud religious move
ment in the world about him.
He met Orestes A. Brownson in 1884
and became to some extent a follower.
The three Hecker brothers, originally
poor, became by their industry, of affiu-
emit circumstances. In his pursuit of
truth Isaac r. Hecker tried the Brook
Farm experiment. with Thoreau and the
Fruitland experiment with Alcott. Some
of his Impressions years afterward are
given by Father Elliot:
''March S, 1883. Bronson Alcott dead!
[ saw him coming from Rochester on the
cars I had been Catholic missionary
for don't know how many years. We
sat together. Father Hecker, said he,
why can't you make Catholic of me?'
'Tyo much rust here said /, clapping
him on the knee. He got very angry be-
cause I said that was the obstacle. I
never saw him angry at any other time.
He was too proud.
"But he was great natural man. He
was faithful to pure, natural conscience.
His virtues came from that. He never
had any virtue beyond what good pa
gan has. He never aimed at anything
more, nor claimed to. He maintained
that to be all.
Il don't believe he ever prayed. Whom
could he pray to? Was not Bronson AL
colt the greatest of all?
Odd he believe IN God?"
mot the God that we know. He be-
lieved in the Bronson Alcott god. He
was his own god"
''You say he was Emerson's master:
what do you mean by that?"
He taught Emerson. He. began life
as peddler. The Yankee peddler was
Emerson's master. Whatever principles
Emerson had, Alcott gave him. And
Emerson was good pupil, he was faith
full to his master to the end.
when did / know him first? Hard to
remember. He was the head of Fruit
lands, as Ripley was Of Brook Farm.
They were entirely different men. Do
genes and his tub would have been AL
colts ideal If he had carried It out. But
he never carried it out. Ripley's ideal
would have been Epictetus. Ripley
would have taken with him the good
things Of this life; Alcott would have re-
jected them all.
He could have been nothing but
hermit like those Of the fourth century
he was naturally and constitutionally 60
odd. Emerson, Alcott and Thoreau were
three consecrated cranks rather be crank
than president. All the cranka look up
to them. ...s
The motives which led Isaac z. Hecker
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