Then partake of it, for it is then only that you can do so prudently and with temperance." "All our thoughts and emotions are caused by some agent acting on us.
This is true of all the senses and the spiritual faculties.

Hence we should by all possible means purify and refine our organism, so that we may hear the most delicate, the sweetest, the stillest sounds and murmurings of the angels who are about us.

How much fuller and richer would be our life if we were more acutely sensitive and finely textured! How many exquisite delights nature yields which we are not yet aware of! What a world surrounds us of which none but holy men, prophets, and poets have had a glimpse!" "The soul is a plate on which the senses daguerreotype indelibly pictures of the outer world.

How cautious should we be where we look, what we hear, what smell, or feel, or taste! And how we should endeavor that all around us should be made beautiful, musical, fragrant, so that our souls may be awakened to a divine sense of life without a moment's interruption!" "O God, be Thou my helper, my strength and my redeemer! May I live wholly to Thee; give me grace and obedience to Thy Spirit.

May all self be put from me so that I may enter into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, Awaken me, raise me up, restore me, O Jesus Christ, Lord, Heavenly King!" In reading what next follows it must be remembered that at the time when it was written Isaac Hecker had absolutely no knowledge of Catholic mystical theology.