_It was this picture that has left such an indelible impression on my mind._ For some time afterward I continued to feel the same influence, and do now so often that the actual around me has lost its hold.

_In my state previous to my vision I should have married ere this, for there are those I have since seen who would have met the demands of my mind._ But now this vision continually hovers over me and prevents me, by its beauty, from accepting any one else; for I am charmed by its influence, and conscious that, should I accept any other, I should lose the life which would be the only one wherein I could say I live." Those of our readers who are either versed in mystical theology or who have any wide knowledge of the lives of the Church's more interior saints, with neither of which Isaac Hecker had at this time any acquaintance, will be apt to recall here St.Francis of Assisi and his bride, the Lady Poverty, the similar occurrences related by Henry Suso of himself, and the mystic espousals of St.Catharine.

We have in this relation not only the plainly avowed reason why he accepted the celibate life, even before entering the Church or arriving at any clear understanding of his duty to do so, but we have something more.

Not yet certain of his own vocation, the dream of a virginal apostolate, including the two sexes, had already absorbed his yearnings, never again to be forgotten.

Neither priest nor Catholic, save in the as yet unrevealed ordinance of God, he was no longer free to invite any woman to marriage, no matter how deeply he might be sensible of her feminine attraction.