and afterward was made Sub-Prior.  But at last, by God’s ordinance, he was promoted to be the fourth Prior of our community, in which office he was confirmed in all peace and charity.  For ten years he continued to be Prior, ruling those that were under him by the goodness and modesty of his character rather than by rough speech; he was instant in his zeal for reading, for prayer, and holy meditations whensoever such exercises were possible.  Well might one write and say of him many of those things that the blessed Bernard doth write concerning Humbert, the servant of God, who was the devout Sub-Prior in St. Bernard’s House.  Him did Henry strive to imitate, for he too was devout, beloved of God and man, and a servant of Christ.  He died in the sixty-first year of his age, having entered upon the forty-second year of his Religious Life, and he was buried on the right side of Brother John Zuermont.

In the same year, on the day before the Feast of St. Ambrose the Bishop—­this day being the Saturday before Passion Sunday—­and at the fifth hour of the morning before Prime, died Dirk ten Water, an honourable citizen and magistrate of Zwolle, who had been received as a Fellow Commoner, for he greatly favoured the devout.

He abode in our House as a guest for six weeks, being sickly the while, but it was his intention to serve God and to remain with us:  also he was a notable benefactor to the House in his lifetime and at his death; and he died in peace in the sixty-eighth year of his age, being fortified by the sacraments of the church.  He was buried in the tomb of his mother, Swane ten Water, beneath a sarcophagus of stone that standeth in our church before the Altar of Holy Cross.

In the same year, on the last day of August, and within the Octave of the Feast of St. Augustine, before Matins, died the humble and devout Laic, John Bobert, being forty years old.  He came from the diocese of Treves, and formerly was our shepherd, but afterward he became porter to the monastery, and he was very faithful and pitiful to the poor.  Having fulfilled twelve years in this House, he fell asleep in peace, and was laid in the burial-ground of the Lay folk.

In the same year, during Advent, on the Octave of the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, and before Prime, died an aged man named Gerard Poelman.  He was a Donate of our House, and was born in Zwolle, but he lived with us for sixty-two years, having come to us in the days when we were still very poor, and lacked goods, buildings, books, and holy vestments.  His parents often succoured us and did us much kindness, for they were somewhat wealthy, and they gave or lent us money to buy provision, because they loved their sons who dwelt with us, namely, Henry, and this Gerard that was the younger brother.  These two had one sister, whose name was Adelaide, a devout virgin, who for many years ruled over the House of the Beguines at Nyerstadt, where at length she died amid the nuns, and she was buried by the Brothers of the Regular Order in Bethlehem.