The philosophical difficulty was far less serious than the spiritual one.  To the philosopher the fundamental truths of human reason are established as objective realities by processes common to every sane mind, and are backed by the common consent of men; and this is true also of the prime verities of ethics.  But when a man finds himself subject to secret influences of the utmost power over him, able to cast him off or to hold him, to sicken his body and distress his soul, extending his views of the truth by flashes of light into vistas that seem infinite, making his love of right an ecstasy, his sympathy for human misery a passion, controlling his diet and his clothing, ordering him here and there at will and knowing how to be obeyed—­when, in a word, a man finds himself treated by God in a manner totally different from any one else he knows or ever heard of, it is plain that he must agonize for the possession of a divine sanction to which he can appeal in common with all men, and which must therefore exist in the external order.  He longs, above all things, to test his secret in the light of day.

The problem that Isaac Hecker had to solve, as he described it himself, was whether his life was real—­using the word “life” to denote its truest meaning, the interior life.  We have been careful to make the reader aware of how deep and continuous were the inner touches of the Holy Spirit which led him on.  Before applying for admission to the Church, there was no truth that he could believe more firmly than that he was the temple of the Holy Ghost.  Of that he had the certitude which is called personal and the teaching of God which is most direct.  Yet something was lacking, and therein lay his agony, for he knew that his fellow-men were entitled to all that he had of truth and virtue.  The more distinct the Voice which spoke within, the more perplexing it became to hear no echo from without.  He felt sure that what was true and holy for him must be so for all, and yet he could not so much as make himself understood if he told his secret to others.  To the born Catholic there is no such difficulty.  He is so fully accustomed to the verification of the inner action of God, enlightening his mind and stinging his conscience, by God’s external action in the Church, that he often confounds the two.  He knows the Voice better by its echo than by its own tones.  There are many good Catholics, but few enlightened mystics.  This is not for lack of guidance, so far as doctrine is concerned, for accredited authors on such subjects are numerous and their teaching is uniform and explicit, besides being of the most intense interest to those for whose instruction it is adapted.  These masters of spiritual doctrine not only dwell upon the interior life itself, but also on the external order of God in His Church which brings His interior teaching into proper relation with the exterior.  The interior life thus made integral is alone worthy of the term real; is alone