Both kinds of organized religious life have their difficulties:  the one, the martinet superior and the routine subject; the other, the capricious subject and the lax superior.  In one kind the bond of union as well as the stimulus of endeavor is mainly obedience, fraternal charity assisting; in the other it is mainly fraternal charity, obedience assisting; each has to overcome obstacles peculiar to itself.

What has been said in this chapter, besides serving to exhibit Father Hecker’s principles as a founder, will be, we trust, a sufficient answer to the silly delusion which the Paulists have encountered in some quarters, that their society tolerates a soft life and supposes in its members no high vocation to perfection; or that the voluntary principle allows them a personal choice in regard to the devotional exercises, permitting them to attend or not attend this or that meditation or devotion laid down in the rule, as “the spirit moves them.”  This is as plain an error as another one which had much currency for years and which is not yet everywhere corrected:  that the Paulist community was open to converts alone and received none others.

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CHAPTER XXVII

FATHER HECKER’S SPIRITUAL DOCTRINE

HAVING given in the preceding chapter Father Hecker’s principles of the religious life in community, a more general view of his spiritual doctrine, as well as of his method of the direction of souls, naturally follows.  And here we are embarrassed by the amount of matter to choose from; for as he was always talking about spiritual doctrine to whomsoever he could get to listen, so in his published writings, in his letters to intimate friends, and in his notes and memoranda, we have found enough falling under the heading of this

CHAPTER to fill a volume.  Let us hope for its publication some day.

It need hardly be said that Father Hecker did not claim to have any new doctrine; there can be none, and he knew it well.  Every generation since Christ has had His entire revelation.  Development is the word which touches the outer margin of all possible adaptation of Christian principles to the changing conditions of humanity.  But in the transmission of these principles from master to disciple, in practically assisting in their use by public instruction, or by private advice, or by choice of devotional and ascetical exercises, there is as great a variety of method as of temperament among races, and even among individuals; and there are broadly marked differences which are conterminous with providential eras of history.  This was a truth which Father Hecker, in common with all discerning minds, took carefully into account.