Page 120 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

MISSION IN ENGLAND 99

Eighteen Forty-Eight was the Year of Revolutions,
but the phght of the English boys and girls of Catholic
heritage could not be shoved aside. In writing good-bye
to his brother, the Rector of the Latin School at Hel-
mond, Brother Alexius told him: "Not withstanding the
terrible conditions which are overwhelming the Church
in Europe, we are called to England in order to teach
children whose distress is so great."
Typical of Brother Ryken was his reaction to the
article in the "Tablet," which he could read and under-
stand without the assistance of Father Ross. Sending
three Brothers to Bury now seemed such an insignificant
gesture that he would have to do more than t[at. He
would found in England a teacher-training school under
Catholic auspices. There were twenty training schools
there already but all of them were under the manage-
ment of the Church of England. "I will invite," he wrote
in his first burst of enthusiasm, "German priests and
professors to come there to teach, for it is in Germany
that we find the true principles of instruction and edu-
cation."
The mice might be dying of starvation in fronr of
the bread box at "flet Walletje" but that did not pre-
vent Brother Ryken from dreaming magnanimous
dreams.
On April 24, 1848, Brother Ryken acknowledged to
Father Peacock the receipt of forty pounds in English
money, assuring him that he and the three Brothers
would sail from Ostend, Belgium, for Dover, England,
on the following Thursday, April 27, and that they
would arrive in Bury on Friday, "if we do not meet with
any stoppages which we do not anticipate."
A month previously when Father Peacock had written
to inquire why the Brothers had not arrived, Brother
Ryken had explained that he had received 750 francs