nd Harvey in
their spare-time monasticism. This was John Holcombe, who had emigrated
from Dorsetshire after an unfortunate love affair and who had been taken
on by George Harvey as a carter. Holcombe was the son of a yeoman farmer
that owned several hundred acres of land. He had been educated at
Sherborne, and soon by his capacity and attractive personality he made
himself so indispensable to his employer that George Harvey's farm was
turned into a joint concern. No doubt Harvey's example was the immediate
cause of Holcombe's associating himself with the little community: but
it still says much for Burrowes' powers of persuasion that he should
have been able to impress this young Dorset farmer with the serious
possibility of leading the monastic life in Ontario.

When another year had passed, an opportunity arose of acquiring a better
farm in Alberta. It was the Bishop of Alberta who had been so
sympathetic with Burrowes' monastic aspirations; and, when Harvey and
Holcombe decided to move to Moose Rib, Burrowes gave up his curacy to
lead a regular monastic life, so far as one could lead a regular
monastic life on a farm in the North-west.

Two more years had gone by when a letter arrived from England to tell
George Harvey that he was the heir to L12,000. Burrowes had kept all his
influence over the young farmer, and he was actually able to persuade
Harvey to devote this fortune to founding the Order of St. George for
mission work among soldiers. There was some debate whether Father
Burrowes, Brother George, and Brother Birinus should take their final
vows immediately; but in the end Father Burrowes had his way, and they
were all three professed by the sympathetic Bishop of Alberta, who
granted them a constitution subject to the ratification of the
Archbishop of Canterbury. Father Burrowes was elected Father Superior,
Brother George was made Assistant Superior, and Brother Birinus had to
concentrate in his person various monastic offices just as on the Moose
Rib Farm he had combined in his person the duties of the various hands.

The immediate objective of the new community was Malta, where it was
proposed to open their first house and where, in despite of the
outraged dignity of innumerable real monks already there, they made a
successful beginning. A second house was opened at Gibraltar and put in
charge of Brother Birinus. Neither Malta nor Gibraltar provided much of
a field for reinforcing the Order, which, if it w