He divided it into five periods, and, with a reminiscence of _Wilhelm Meister,_ called it his _Wanderjahr:_ "The first should be named Youth, and give the ideal and the actual in youth.
"The second should be the struggle between the ideal and the actual.
"The third should be the mastery and supremacy of the ideal over the actual and material.
"The fourth should give the absolute union of the ideal and the eternal-absolute in their unconditioned existence.
"The fifth should give the eventual one-ness of the ideal-absolute with humanity and nature.
"Under these five heads I have in mind materials sufficient to make a volume, but lack the close application necessary to connect them.

I do not say it would be readable when done.

It would be the esoteric and exoteric history of my own life for ten years.

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"I would open the first chapter thus: Let men say what they will, God above us, the human soul, and all surrounding nature, are great realities, eternal, solemn, joyous facts of human experience." In the fine passage that follows we have an anticipation of the prominent modern conception of Christianity, as a developing force in the history of man--closing an epoch and introducing a new species; or, as Father Hecker would have said in later years, raising man from his natural position as a creature of God to true sonship with Him through affiliation with Jesus Christ.