LED BY THE SPIRIT THE earliest of the letters so fortunately preserved by the affection of Isaac Hecker's kindred is addressed to his mother, from Chelsea, and bears date December 24, 1842.

After giving some details of his arrival, and of the kindly manner in which he had been received, he writes:* [* We have corrected some slight errors of orthography and punctuation in these early letters.

They were of the sort to be expected from a self-trained youth, as yet little used to the written expression of his thoughts.

They soon disappear almost entirely.] "But as regards your advice to write my thoughts to you, that is an impossibility which I cannot govern or control.

This ought not to be so, but so it is.