And if not his, how those of other men?
One thing that becomes evident in studying this period of Isaac Hecker's life is the fact that his acquaintance with Dr.Brownson marks a turning-point in his views, his opinions, his whole attitude of mind toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Until then the Saviour of men had been represented to him exclusively as a remedy against the fear of hell; His use seemed to be to furnish a Divine point to which men might work themselves up by an emotional process resulting in an assurance of forgiveness of sin and a secure hope of heaven.
Christianity, that is to say, had been presented to him under the form of Methodism.

The result had been what might have been anticipated in a nature so averse to emotional excitement and possessing so little consciousness of actual sin.

Drawn to God as he had always been by love and aspiration, he was not as yet sensible of any gulf which needed to be bridged between him and his Creator; hence, to present Christ solely as the Victim, the Expiatory Sacrifice demanded by Divine Justice, was to make Him, if not impossible, yet premature to a person like him.

Meantime, what he saw and heard all around him, poverty, inequality, greed, shiftlessness, low views of life, ceaseless and poorly remunerated toil, made incessant demands upon him.