The responsibility is upon each one; the indifference of others is no excuse.

Said Father Hecker one day to a friend: "There is too much waiting upon the action of others.

The layman waits for the priest, the priest for the bishop, and the bishop for the pope, while the Holy Ghost sends down to all the reproof that He is prompting each one, and no one moves for Him." Father Hecker was original in his ideas, as well as in his methods; there was no routine in him, mental or practical.
I cannot but allude, whether I understand or not the true intent of it, to what appears to have been a leading fact in his life: his leaving an old-established religious community for the purpose of instituting that of the Paulists.

I will speak so far of this as I have formed an estimate of it.

To me, this fact seems to have been a Providential circumstance in keeping with all else in his life.