But among the many interesting figures at Brook Farm I recall none more sincerely absorbed than Isaac Hecker in serious questions.

The merely aesthetic aspects of its life, its gayety and social pleasures, he regarded good-naturedly, with the air of a spectator who tolerated rather than needed or enjoyed them.

There was nothing ascetic or severe in him, but I have often thought since that his feeling was probably what he might have afterward described as a consciousness that he must be about his Father's business.
"I do not remember him as especially studious.

Mr.Ripley had classes in German philosophy and metaphysics, in Kant and Spinoza, and Isaac used to look in, as he turned wherever he thought he might find answers to his questions.

He went to hear Theodore Parker preach in the Unitarian Church in the neighboring village of West Roxbury.