“Where could I find repose?  Not in the community; not at my brother’s:  nowhere else to go.  Then, again, I would be constantly required to give opinions and counsel in the affairs of the community, which would require an application beyond my strength.  There is no other way than for me to remain contented in Europe, with my feebleness and obscurity, in the hands of God.”

But on July 29 he received a letter which compelled him to decide between tranquillity of spirit and bodily comfort—­perhaps life itself—­on the one hand, and the call of his brethren on the other.  He decided without a moment’s hesitation and with the utmost equanimity.  We quote from a letter to George Hecker: 

“Three days ago a letter from Father Hewit reached me urging my immediate return in such strong language and with such considerations that I wrote a reply expressing my readiness to return at once.  On re-reading the letter I found its tone so urgent that I sent a telegram to the above effect. . . .  In God’s hands are my being, my soul, and all my faculties, to do with them and direct them as He pleases.  To return to the United States and there arrange things to His pleasure, or to leave me here.  I am indifferent, quiet, entirely ready either not to act or to act.”

And so in October, 1875, Father Hecker was again in New York.  He begged the Fathers to allow him to stay with his brother for the present, “for my nerves could not stand the noise, the routine, and the excitement of the house in Fifty-ninth Street.”  And when he did return to the convent to live, which was four years afterwards, he was quite sure that his end was at hand, though it did not come till nine years later.

During all the thirteen years between Father Hecker’s return to America and his death, his daily order of life was pretty much the same as he described it in one of his letters from Europe, already given to the reader.  He did not resort any longer to change of place or climate as a means of recovery; he had tried that long enough.  His physician, the one who served the community, assisted him constantly with advice and remedies, and once or twice he tried a sanitarium; he was apt to try anything suggested, being credulous about such matters.  But his strength of body slowly faded away.  He was more disturbed than surprised at this, and fought for life every inch of the way.

“If I were a Celt,” he once said with a smile, “I should more readily resign myself to die, but I am of a race that clings fast to the earth.”  His persistent struggle was sometimes calm, but was generally sharpened by a horrible dread of death, which fastened on his soul like a vampire, and gave a stern aspect to his self-defence.  His patience in suffering was most admirable, though seldom clothed in the usual formalities.  “Perhaps, after all,” he would sometimes say, “God will give me back my health, for I have a work to do.”