“My love, my gratitude, and my prayers to and for you all.  Remember me to all my friends.

“Your brother, ISAAC.

“St. Trond, October 15, 1846.

“I have forgotten to say that if you have not already made use of the things that I left, such as clothing, you should do so.”

In bidding adieu to the novitiate we think Father Hecker’s last meeting with his old novice-master, as we find it recorded in the memoranda, will be of interest:  “Pere Othmann was one of my best friends.  Shortly before he died I happened to be in France (this was after leaving the Redemptorists), and I heard that he was extremely ill at the Redemptorist house at Nancy.  I wrote to him that if he wished I would call and see him.  He answered me at once, begging me to come immediately, as he desired above all things to see me before he died.  So I made a journey to Nancy, and we had some hours of pleasant conference together, and I bade him farewell.”

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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.