Page 157 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

136 BISHOP SPALDING IN BRUGES
"Het Walletje." Naturally things had changed during
-There
his absence. were three professed Brothers whom
he was meeting for the first time; he was acquainted
-of
with only one the six novices, young De Vries who
had joined the December before the pioneers had left
for ilury. Missing was the familiar face of Brother
Cajetan Duchateau, the first disciple, who had with-
drawn in 1849.
Gradually as Brother Alexius began to take an active
part in the activities of the community, he found himself
but of step with his confreres and especially with the
Father Superior. Aggressive and nothing loath to as-
sume responsibility, he chafed under what he regarded
as hit-or-miss methods. He was more at ease when the
Founder, recognizing the young man's executive ability,
placed him in charge of the School of Our Lady still
housed in the shadow of the church from which it took
its name.
Suddenly all the projects of the Xaverian Brothers in
both England and Belgium became items of secondary
importance. On December 22, 1852, the youthful bishop
of Louisville, Kentucky, Rt. Rev. Martin J. Spalding,
came to call on Brother Ryken. Accompanying him was
his Vicar General, Rev. David Deparcq. They had
landed at Le Havre earlier that December and after a
visit to Paris in quest of priests and possibly Brothers,
who would volunteer to serve in a frontier diocese, had
corne north, hoping for some success in Belgium and
Holland. In Paris they had been told bluntly that
France had no priests to spare.
Bishop Spalding wanted priest-volunteers but he did
not wish to recruit under false pretences. In visiting
every seminary in the Low Countries to address the
students, he played down every human advantage that
might be associated with life on the "missions.'r His