Be willing to be despised, spit upon, crucified.

Be silent, and let your silence speak for you." It is plain that what Isaac Hecker is here condemning is the life of the world, wholly ordinary in its aims and motives.

It is not to be understood as a condemnation of the common lot of men, or of that life in itself.

It was only as he saw it over against his own vocation to something higher that it became repulsive, nay guilty _to him._ Nor was he even yet so settled in his view of the contrasted worth of the two careers between which he had to choose, as to be quite free from painful struggles.

In the entry made on the day preceding this outburst, he once more recurs to the subject of marriage: "Monday Evening, June 26 .-- This evening the same advice that has been given me before, first by the doctor who attended me, next by my dearest friend, was given me again by a man who now resides here." "Tuesday Morning, June 27 .-- Rather than follow this advice, I would die.