cy, and we had some hours of pleasant conference
together, and I bade him farewell."

________________________

CHAPTER XXII

HOW BROTHER HECKER MADE HIS STUDIES AND WAS ORDAINED PRIEST

THE day after the taking of the vows, Brothers Hecker and Walworth
started by stage-coach for the house of studies, at Wittem in Dutch
Limburg. The route lay nearly east through a country pleasant on
account of the fertility of its soil and the industry of its
inhabitants, and interesting from its churches, monasteries, and
curious old villages. The travellers crossed the Meuse at Maestricht
and reached their destination before nightfall. Wittem is a small
town, thirty miles east of St. Trond and about ten west of
Aix-la-chapelle. This part of Holland is entirely Catholic, and its
people possess a fervor which has sent missionaries to the ends of
the earth. Everywhere shrines were to be seen by the roadsides. The
country is not so level as that west of the Meuse, and the
Redemptorist students often made excursions among the hills, our
young Americans admiring the shepherds guarding their flocks, with
their crooks and their dogs.

The house of studies was an old Capuchin monastery, large and plain
and very interesting. The friars had buried their dead under the
ground floor, which enabled the students to dig up an abundant supply
of skulls as _memento moris_ till the rector forbade it. The students
were more numerous at Wittem than the novices had been at St. Trond.
They were mostly Dutchmen, with a sprinkling of Belgians and a few
Germans; but the language of the house was French or Latin. We have
not been able to make quite sure of the name of the Rector; possibly
it was Father Heilig, who certainly was there at this time, either in
charge of the house or as one of the professors. The Master of
Studies was Father L'hoir, who soon became one of Brother Hecker's
dearest friends.

The two Americans found their fellow-students men of fine character
and every way lovable, being earnest and devoted religious. They
admired their thorough proficiency in all classical and literary
studies, the result of old-world method and application. Mentally and
physically they were splendid men. The whole race of Flemings and
Dutch was found by our young recruits to be a grave and powerful
people, although exceptional cases of mercurial temperament were not
rare. Some curious individuals were to be found among them, as is
more the case in Eu