Page 56 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

36 To AMERICA AGAIN

At Loretto, Ryken had several talks with the Mother
Superior, who appreciated his frame of mind. Of her
he later wrote gratefully: "When I told her that I was
about to start for St. Louis where probably I would meet
with great difficulties, she said: 'Let them talk. Let them
try to thwart your plans. March on! The Lord will
help you."'z
In 1838 the trip from Louisville to St. Louis consumed
three days, and in January a spell of cold weather would
have disrupted the normal schedule but Ryken seems to
have had no trouble. He arrived sometime around the
twentieth of January.
When Ryken presented himself at St. Louis College,
it was probably the Rector, Rev. John Elet, who received
him. After the Rector had listened to his visitor's bub-
bling enthusiasm and welcomed him to share the hos-
pitality of the community, he may have hoped that
reality would sober this starry-eyed dreamer. One of his
brethren had once remarked: "It would take a St.
Francis Xavier to convert Indians, and the Society of
Jesus has had only one St. Francis Xavier." Father
Elet,agreed, for he knew what it meant to be a mission-
ary. After his ordination in 1827, he had been sent to
the Salt River District in northeastern Missouri, and
here he had gone hungry, slept in the open, and ridden
the muddy trails.
At the supper-table that evening, Father Elet intro.
duced Mr. Ryken to the community, practically all of
whom hailed from the Low Countries. A friendly ques-
tion from one of them who intended to put Ryken at ease
was all that was needed to open the flood gates. Ryken
sketched his whole background. As he talked, he ate.
His audience noted without comment that he qualified
as an excellent trencherman and that he quafied his
wine with a certain gusto. They may have guessed that