We find the following among the memoranda of conversations: "June 30, 1886 .-- Why didn't I switch off from Christianity as Carlyle did?
Because I hope that I was truer to natural reason; but chiefly because God had given me such an amount of infused lights and graces that I was forced to seek a guide or go off into extravagant fanaticism.

They were ready to encourage me in the latter.

George Ripley said to me, 'Hecker, what have you got to tell?
Tell us what it is and we will accept it.'" The impression a perfectly "independent thinker" made on him, as typified in Emerson, is told in an entry in his diary, dated April 24, 1844: "I have had a few words with Emerson.

He stands on the extreme ground where he did several years ago.

He and his followers seem to me to live almost a purely intellectual existence.