In addition to these peculiar visitations, and very probably in consequence of them, Isaac’s inward anxieties culminated in prolonged fits of nervous depression, and at last in repeated attacks of illness which baffled the medical skill called to his assistance.  Towards Christmas he went to Chelsea to visit Brownson, to whom he partially revealed the state of obscurity and distress in which he found himself.  Brownson, who had been one of the original promoters of the experiment in practical sociology at West Roxbury, advised a residence at Brook Farm as likely to afford the young man the leisure and opportunities for study which he needed in order to come to a full understanding with himself.  He wrote to George Ripley in his behalf and later undertook to reconcile the Hecker household with Isaac’s determination to go thither.

It was during his stay at Chelsea that Isaac first began plainly to acquaint his family with the fact that his departure meant something more important than the moderately prolonged change of scene and circumstances which they had recognized as essential to his health.  We shall make abundant extracts from the letters which begin at this date, convinced that his own words will not only afford the best evidence of the strength of the interior pressure on him, but will show also its unique and constant bent.

Our purpose is to show, in the most explicit manner possible, first, how irresistibly he was impelled toward the celibate life and the practice of poverty; and second, that in yielding to this impulse, he was also drawn away from his former view of our Saviour, as simply the perfect man, to the full acceptance of the supernatural truth that He is the Incarnate God.

It is at this period of Father Hecker’s life that we first meet with a positive interference of an extraordinary kind in the plans and purposes of his life.  Many men who have outlived them, and settled down into respectable but in nowise notable members of society, have felt vague longings and indefinite aspirations toward a good beyond nature during the “Storm and Stress” period of their youth.  The record of their mental struggles gets into literature with comparative frequency, and sometimes becomes famous.  It has always a certain value, if merely as contributing to psychological science; but in any particular instance is of passing interest only, unless it can be shown to have been instrumental in shaping the subsequent career.  The latter was the case with Father Hecker.  The extraordinary influences already mentioned continued to dominate his intelligence and his will, sometimes with, oftener without, explicit assignment of any cause.  It is plain enough that, up to the time when they began, he had looked forward to such a future of domestic happiness as honest young fellows in his position commonly desire.  “He was the life of the family circle,” says one who knew the Hecker household intimately; “he loved his people, and was loved by them with great intensity, and his going away must have been most painful to him as well as to them.”