He was enthusiastic in his work, as all are who put their whole soul
into what they are doing. Such people have no time to count the dark
linings of the silvery clouds; they realize that God and man together
do not fail. Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. It fits a man to be a
leader; it secures a following. A bishop who was present at the
Second Plenary Council of Baltimore has told me that when Father
Hecker appeared before the assembled prelates and theologians in
advocacy of Catholic literature as a missionary force, the picture
was inspiring, and that the hearers, receiving a Pentecostal fire
within their bosoms, felt as if America were to be at once converted.
So would it have been if there had been in America a sufficient
number of Heckers. He had his critics. Who ever tries to do something
outside routine lines against whom hands are not raised and whose
motives and acts are not misconstrued? A venerable clergyman one day
thought he had scored a great point against Father Hecker by jocosely
suggesting to him as the motto of his new order the word "Paulatim."
The same one, no doubt, would have made a like suggestion to the
Apostle of the Gentiles. Advocates of "Paulatim" methods have too
often left the wheels of Christ's chariot fast in the mire. We
rejoice, for its sake, that enthusiasts sometimes appear on the
scene. The missions of the early Paulists, into which went Father
Hecker's entire heart, aroused the country. To-day, after a lapse of
thirty or thirty-five years, they are remembered as events wherever
they were preached.

His was the profound conviction that, in the present age at any rate,
the order of the day should be individual action--every man doing his
full duty, and waiting for no one else to prompt him. This, I take
it, was largely the meaning of Father Hecker's oft-repeated teaching