True, most of these had fallen away from both the fellowship and the doctrines of orthodoxy; but while they had not the heart to point him to what had been their Egypt, still they had no Promised Land to lead him into, and were confessedly in the Desert.
Yet their influence was indirectly favorable to Protestantism as opposed to Catholicity, although no one but the ministers whom he consulted thought of urging him to identify himself with any variety of it until he showed signs of becoming a Catholic.
To this rule Brownson may appear as a partial exception, but until the summer of 1844 he was so in appearance only.

It is true that Isaac Hecker had learned from him the claims of most of the great forms of Protestantism, and got his personal testimony as to the emptiness of them all.

Brownson was a competent witness, for he had been an accepted disciple of every school, from sterile Presbyterianism to rank Transcendentalism.

Although of a certain testiness of temper, he bore malice to no man and to no body of men.
His testimony was in the presence of patent facts, and his condemnation of all forms of orthodox Protestantism in the end was unreserved.

But, up to the date given above he still made a possible exception in favor of Anglicanism.