But the other mysteries of God which are hidden in his providential guidance of men, he could expound with the instinctive familiarity of a native gift; the voice of God in nature, in reason, and in conscience, and its response in revelation, he could elicit with a power and unction rarely met with.

He has left the following words on record: "After my ordination the duties of the sacred ministry appeared to me most natural; the hearing of confessions and the direction of souls was as if it had been a thing practised from my childhood, and was a source of great consolation." The year spent in England after ordination was occupied by Father Hecker mainly in parochial duties at Clapham and some neighboring stations attended by the Redemptorists of that house.

Father Walworth enjoyed some missionary experience with Fathers Pecherine and Buggenoms, but Father Hecker had only been at one or two small retreats--one at Scott-Murray's estate in company with Father Ludwig and another at that of Weld-Blundells in Lancashire; but in neither of these had he preached or given any instructions, serving only in the confessional and in hunting up obstinate sinners.

He certainly did preach once before leaving England, perhaps only once, and that was at Great Marlowe, near London, in the church built by the Hornihold family.

It was on Easter Sunday, 1850, and was well remembered by Father Hecker and referred to in after years.