Page 40 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

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tion supplied a visa: "Vu. Bon pour aller en Arnerique."
OI Ryken's first trip to the United States, there is a
brief summary in Brother Ignatius Melis's "Notes": "In
l83l he went to America for the first time and $tayed
there till 1834. During that time he suffered many hard-
ships. Having little money, he had ro earn his bread.
One time he worked on a boat unloading lumber from
morning till night. At another time he was a servant
to a bishop. He also served a French missionary among
the red Indians, and at another time he became an oil
hawker."
The French missionary with whom Ryken was asso-
ciated has been identified as no other than the farned
Rev. Stephen Badin.
On March 31, 1832, when Bishop Edward Fenwick,
O.P., returned to Cincinnati, Ohio, after several months'
absence in the East, he found among those waiting to
see him the Rev. Stephen Badin, who for two years had
been looking after the spiritual interests of the Pottawa-
torni Indians. Old age was catching up on this veteran,
and he asked for a priest to help him.
The best that Bishop Fenwick could do was to assign
a Belgian, one Ghislain Boheme, who had been raised
to the diaconate. Boheme would assist Badin as much
as he could, and Badin would help him complete his
theological studies.
In the first days of May, Father Badin and the deacon
were on their way to the Pottawatomi mission in north-
ern Indiana. With them was a third person, named
"Nicholas," none other than Theodore Ryken.
Jimes
There is no doubt about his identification. A few
years later when Mr. Ryken was soliciting tesrimonial
letters, Father Badin urore: "About the Pottawatomi I
could write much more if time permitted, I have pre-
pared this statement now, having been requested by