Page 192 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

TOIL AND TROUBLE I7I
he had appointed him assistant to Brorher paul,
the
Superior, with instructions in regard to Brother peter
Alcantara for Brother paul's giridance. The velvet_
glove appro-ach had not worked. In a moment of indig-
nation Brother Ryken wrote to Brother Vincent in Mai-
chester: "I shall write to America that I challenge the
whole clergy and Brother peter
with all his hang"ers_on
to prove that I have acted against my contract. Wi have
to stand four.square and defend our'rights. paul is very
upset. Francis has written a letter of loyalty.,,
fn the Iast months of 1857 the overwrought Father
Superior went ofi to Germany. The whole Jommunity
had pleaded with him to take a resr. He had gone bui
he could not leave his cares behind, especially lii, *o..y
over the sick. The decade beginning in lgb0 had been
the climactic years around the worldin the tuberculosis
epidemic, "the white-man's plague.,, At ,,Het
Walletje,'
were five Brothers for whom there was little hope.
Brother returned from Germany veiy much
|lken
as he had been when he went there. One of his first
sad duties was to watch beside the bed of Brother An-
B11dfe|, the first novice from England, as he
3elm ,
breathed his last ar the Van der plancke
Clinic in Cour_
trai on January 27, 18b8. Within the week he learned
fa1 $eyf lfagemann, a postulant just fifteen years old,
had died on
January twenty-sixth at his home in Kirchel_
Ien, Prussia.
Irr February, 1858, Brother Ryken entered the Clinic
at Courtrai to take the "water-triatment.,, In a few days
he was discharged as physically fit. He rerurned to his
duties at "Het Walletje," still very much aware of the
possibility- of a sudden death. To preclude any possible
complications in such an event, he wrote out hi; witt ana
had it duly witnessed even to the extent of affixing the
Government stamp that made it legal. Whatevei the