Page 149 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

Chapter 21
NEW PROJECTS

1nr 1850, Rrv. NIenuN VnN B.err, Brother Ryken's
-f "alter ego" in North Brabant, was sixty years old.
Most of his thirty years as a priest had been spent. teach-
ing either at the Latin School in Gemert, Holland, or at
the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, which he had
begun at Gemert and later transferred to the former
seminary building near's-Hertogenbosch (Bois le Duc).
Obedience had made him a teacher, but if he had been
allowed to heed his fond dreams he would have been
with the American Indians. When he asked permission
to go on the American "mission," he was told that he
was too old, and when he expressed a desire to retire
from the active ministry, he was granted gracious ap-
proval. The bishop sympathized with him, for it was
he, as Father Van Beek's pastor in Gemert, who had
induced the newly-ordained Levite to take up an aposto-
late among the neglected deaf-and-dumb.
Father Van Beek planned to spend his declining years,
as he thought, with his friends in Bruges. The Founder
was delighted. He wrote: "You remained true to me
when I was subjected to trials. You were my protector,
who encouraged me in the difficult task I had under-
taken. For all these reasons, I tell you the sooner you
come the better."
Late that December, this Dutch priest arrived in
Bruges and took possession of the little room his friend
had set aside for him at "Het Walletje." Relieved of
his worries in being superinrendent of the Institute for