But on the eve of the election half of their candidates sold out to one of the opposing parties.

What other results this treachery may have had is a question which, fortunately, does not concern us, but it dispelled one of the strongest of Isaac Hecker's youthful illusions.

He continued, nevertheless, to prove the sincerity with which his views on social questions were held, by doing all that lay in his power to better the condition of the men in the employment of his brothers and himself.
After he passed his majority his interest in the business declined rapidly, and it is impossible to doubt that one of the chief reasons why it did so is to be sought in his changing convictions as to the manner in which business in general should be carried on.
Although in accepting Christ as his master and model he had as yet no belief in Him as more than the most perfect of human beings, yet, even so, Isaac Hecker's sincerity and simplicity were too great to permit him to follow his leader at a purely conventional distance.
"Do you know," he said long afterwards, "the thought that first loosened me from the life I led?
How can I love my fellow-men and yet get rich by the sweat of their brows?
I couldn't do it.

You are not a Christian, and can't call yourself one, I said to myself, if you do that.

The heathenish selfishness of business competition started me away from the world." If he had received a Catholic training, Isaac Hecker would soon have recognized that he was being drawn toward the practice of that counsel of perfection which St.Paul embodies to St.Timothy in the words: "Having food and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content."* Could he have sought at this time the advice of one familiar with internal ways, he must have been cautioned against that first error to which those so drawn are liable, of supposing that this call is common and imperative, and can never fail to be heard without some more or less wilful closing of the ears.