We fought this battle shoulder-to-shoulder."-- _Catholic World,_ October, 1887, pp.

5-6.
Brownson's heavy heart was due to philosophical difficulties, and Isaac Hecker's to the same; but in addition the latter had a mystical experience to which Brownson was at that time, certainly, a stranger, and, as far as we know, he remained so; and these mystical difficulties demanded settlement far more imperatively than did the philosophical ones.

Isaac Hecker's inner life must have an external adjunct of divine authority.

Such aspirations of the soul for present union with God in love as he had, are more peremptory in demanding satisfaction than those of the logical faculty in demanding the ascertainment of the certain truth.

Philosophy outside the Church is to the searcher after truth what St.Paul said the Law was to the Jews, a schoolmaster; but, to a soul in the condition of Isaac Hecker, the Holy Spirit is a spouse demanding union.