Nor was Bishop McCloskey without light as a judge in spiritual matters. By nature calm and self-poised, and readily obedient to reason, the grace of his high office, his wide knowledge of men, his extensive reading, were doubtless supplemented by a special infusion of heavenly wisdom, due to his upright purpose and his spotless life. Though not timid, he was not conspicuous for courage; his refuge in difficulty was a high order of prudence, never cowardice; nor did he err either by precipitancy, by cruelty, or by rigidity of adherence to abstract rules of law. Father Hecker knew him thoroughly well, and admired him; more, he profited by his guidance, and that not only at this earliest period of their intercourse. It was by him that Isaac Hecker's vocation was, though not revealed, yet most wisely directed. Brownson told the young man that he ought to devote himself to the Germans in this country; Bishop Hughes advised him to go to St. Sulpice and study for the secular priesthood; Bishop McCloskey told him to become a religious.
Hitherto Isaac Hecker's environment had been entirely non-Catholic; the ebbing and flowing of a sea of doubt and inquiry upon which floated small boats and rafts which had been cast off from the good ship of Christ. Now that he was on board the ship itself, he found its crew and passengers sailing straight on toward their destined haven, paying small regard, as a rule, to the small craft and the shipwrecked sailors tossing on the wild waves around them, and only surprised when one or another hailed their vessel and asked to be taken on board. Nor did the attitude of non-Catholics, taking them generally, invite anything else. Isaac Hecker, passing into the Church, not only came into contact with its members, but was to be for some years exclusively in their company. But, though carried beyond the Ripleys, the Alcotts, the Lanes, the Emersons, and beyond the theories they in some sort stand for and represent, he had learned them and their lesson, and never lost his aptitude for returning to their company with a Catholic message. His farewell to that class did not involve loss of affectionate interest, for in mind he continually reverted to them. He knew that their peculiar traits were significant of the most imperative invitation of Providence to missionary work. He thought it was to that class, or, rather, to the multitude to whom they were prophets, that the exponent of Catholicity should first address himself. They possessed the highest activity of the natural faculties; they were all but the only class of Americans who loved truth for its own sake, that trait which is the peculiarity of the Catholic mind, and the first requisite for real conversion.