But to Isaac Hecker all such points as these were, in a sense, subsidiary.

He had asked admission into the Church because he found it to be the only teaching society on earth whose doctrines gave complete and adequate satisfaction to that fundamental craving of his nature which prompted his questions.

She accredited herself to him as fully by that fact as she must have done to many a philosophic pagan among those who were the first disciples to the new faith preached by St.John or St.Paul.All else he accepted with an implicit, child-like confidence not different from that which moves the loyal descendant of ages of Catholic ancestors.

It was clear to him that these accompanying doctrines and institutions must have been enfolded within the original germ, and must be received on the same authority, not by an analytic process and on their merits, one by one.
What he wanted was, in the first place, sustenance for what he invariably calls "the life" given him; and next, light to see in what way he was to put to use the strength so gained.

The first effect of the sacraments was what one might call the natural one of making more visible the shadows which enveloped his path, as well as stimulating his instinctive efforts to pierce through them.