1. Isaac Hecker, diary entry, January 11, 1843, in The Diary , ed. John Farina, 89 (hereafter referred to as Diary ).

2. As quoted in Walter Elliott, The Life of Father Hecker , 344 (hereafter referred to as Elliott). The epigraph for this section is excerpted from a reminiscence by Father Hecker as quoted in Elliott, 81.

3. Hecker to Mon. T. R. Pere [Rev. Michael Heilig, C.S.S.R.], May 30, 1848; as quoted in The Brownson-Hecker Correspondence , 20 (hereafter referred to as Correspondence ).

4. Diary , 149. John Farina attempts to normalize such entries of Hecker's by suggesting that by "spiritual presence" Hecker intends his former close friends at Brook Farm. I would argue, however, that Hecker indeed means the spiritual presence of spiritual bodies since his diary and other writings frequently record an intimate sense of the presence of the supernatural as personal beings.

5. This phrase is recorded in a reminiscence of 1888 by his first biographer, Walter Elliott, 82.

6. Hecker to Brownson, December 14, 1843, in Correspondence , 79.

7. As quoted in Elliott, 32.

8. Diary , 141; see also the entry on 129.

9. Diary , 135.

10. Hecker to his family, May 2, 1844; as quoted in Elliott, 141.

11. Diary , 142.

12. Diary , May 19, 1844, 188.

13. Diary , November 1843, 147.

14. Herman Melville, Pierre; or, The Ambiguities , 284.

15. The Reasons of John James Maximilian Oertel, Late a Lutheran Minister for Becoming a Catholic , 10. Even Catholic converts dedicated to a rational explication of their decision at times portrayed themselves as victims of unknown influences; Bishop Ives, for example, explained

his conversion experience as emanating from an anonymous persuasion: "In the outset, let me recall the fact, that for years a mysterious influence, which I could neither fully comprehend nor entirely throw off, visited my mind, unsettling its peace and filling it with yearnings for something in religion more real than I had hitherto experienced" (13).

16. As quoted in Elliott, 108.

17. Joshua Huntington, Gropings after Truth , 144.

18. Ibid., 111.

19. Hecker to Brownson, February 19, 1860, in Correspondence , 211. I have followed the editors' practice, and hence Hecker's frequent abbreviation of "Christian" to "Xtian" appears without bracketed explanation in my text, as does spelling in subsequent quotations.

20. John Milner, The End of Religious Controversy, in a Friendly Correspondence between a Religious Society of Protestants and a Roman Catholic Divine , 122-23. Completed in 1802, Milner's "letters" were a highly influential contribution to Catholic-Protestant polemics. Most of the points by Huntington, Ives, and Brownson can be found in Milner's volume. See, for example, Milner's assertion that Protestants have been inculcated from infancy in the belief that their faith is scriptural. "Hence, when they actually read the Scriptures, they fancy they see there what they have been otherwise taught to believe" (62). For Milner's influence on American converts, see Robert Gorman, Catholic Apologetical Literature in the United States, 1784-1858 , 53ff. Gorman relies on Peter Guilday, "Two Catholic Bestsellers," America 54 (1935): 177-79, for his information on Milner. Further references to Milner are given parenthetically in the text.

21. John Adam Moehler [Johann Adam Möhler], Symbolism; or, Exposition of the Doctrinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants , 312. Further references to Mõhler are given parenthetically in the text.

22. Diary , January 14, 1845, 289.

23. The Escaped Nun and Other Narratives , 269.

24. Isaac Hecker, Questions of the Soul , 289.

25. As quoted in Elliott, 134.

26. "Ritual," Christian Examiner , 69 (1860): 321.

27. Hecker to his family, June 11, 1844; as quoted in Elliott, 151.

28. As quoted in Elliott, 224.

29. "The Two Sides of Catholicism," Catholic World 1, no. 1 (1865): 746.

30. Diary , [Spring?] 1844, 206-7.

31. Hecker to Brownson, August 26, 1869, in Correspondence , 277. Hecker is referring to Emerson's "Speech at the Second Annual Meeting of the Free Religious Association at Tremont Temple, Friday, May 28,

1869." Brownson cites Emerson's address in his "Free Religion," Catholic World 10, no. 56 (1869).

32. Isaac Hecker, Aspirations of Nature, 3 .

33. "Christmas in Philadelphia," Harbinger 6 (Jan. 1, 1848).

34. As quoted in Elliott, 227.

35. Hecker to his family, June 1844; as quoted in Elliott, 165.

36. Hecker to Brownson, August 17, 1844, in Correspondence , 111.

37. Hecker, diary entry, August 20, 1844; as quoted in Elliott, 187.

38. Thoreau to Hecker, August 14, 1844; as quoted in Autobiography of Brook Farm , 121.

39. As quoted in Elliott, 296. Describing Hecker's success as a missionary priest, Sophia Ripley wrote to Ruth Charlotte Dana: "He instructs at 6 a.m. every day and by five the Church is so thronged by all classes of persons that it is difficult to get in" (letter dated April 1851, Dana Family Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society).

40. John Farina, An American Experience of God , 141.

41. Hecker, The Church and the Age ( 1887); as quoted in Elliott, 313.

42. As quoted in Elliott, 376.

43. As quoted in Elliott, 381.

44. As quoted in Elliott, 385.

45. For Hecker's difficulties at mass, see memorandum entry for Christmas 1885, quoted in Elliott, 413. The citation is from Elliott, 405.