The difficulties of Wittem were not abated at Clapham; rather they were aggravated by Brother Hecker having to deal with new superiors.  “I remember seeing Hecker at Clapham, looking hopelessly into his moral theology,” said Father Walworth to the writer.  Father Frederick de Held, whom we left in Baltimore, had returned to Europe, being Provincial of the Belgian Province, which at that time included the English as well as the American missions.  It must have seemed strange to him that Brother Hecker had been sent to England; he had no house of studies to put him into and could give him no regular course of instruction.  We cannot even surmise what word was sent to Father de Held about this curious young man, whom early one summer’s morning three years before he had seen flitting into Baltimore and out of it, taking with him the Provincial’s leave to enter the novitiate.  Perhaps the case had been sent to him because it was too perplexing for any authority less than his to settle.  At any rate, it placed him in an awkward position, to decide the case of this lone applicant for orders, who had made no studies and could make none, and yet who was of so marked a character, so full of life, so zealous, working willingly about the church, eagerly working in the kitchen, talking deep philosophy and forming plans for the conversion of nations.  His case was peculiar.  The difficulty was not confined to the question of divinity studies.  Brother Hecker’s general education was scant, and his English [sic] was still faulty.  And yet he was silently asking ordination in a preaching order, for which a thorough education is a prerequisite.  Father de Held, therefore, is not to be condemned for his harshness as wanting in sympathy or in judgment of character.  Gold is tried by fire, and fire is an active agent and a painful one.  But Brother Hecker soon found both solace and assistance in a new friend.

We quote from the memoranda: 

“Father de Held was superior at Clapham and for a year he treated me as Henry Suso says a dog treats a rag—­he took me in his teeth and shook me.  At last I went to him and begged him to settle my case one way or the other:  ordain me, or make a lay brother of me, or take off my habit and dismiss me to another order; though I told him that would be like taking off my skin.  Father de Buggenoms then went my surety.  He had been my confessor at Clapham and was then absent.  But he wrote to De Held that he would guarantee my conduct if ordained.  De Held then changed and became my fast and constant friend.”

This is the first mention we find of Father de Buggenoms.  Father Hecker ever venerated him and cherished his memory as that of a saintly friend and benefactor.

On another occasion we find a fuller account of the same events: 

“Only for Father de Buggenoms I should not have been ordained at all.”

“Who was De Buggenoms?”