This event was auspicious of the future of the entire community, since his apostolate was the means of propagating the order among the northern nations, and giving to it some of its present dominant characteristics of Teutonic discipline; whereas in the land of its origin it has never fully recovered from the disasters which befell it during the lifetime of its founder.

In Germany and the Low Countries, on the other hand, the children of St.
Alphonsus and St.Clement were, at the time when the three Americans joined them, the most powerful preachers in the Church.

Their vocation called them to give missions--spiritual exercises lasting from a week to a month--to the faithful in every part of Catholic Europe, not excepting France.

Their fame was established as the foremost preachers of penance and of the Redeemer's love for sinners.
St.Trond was the novitiate of the Belgian Province, which embraced Belgium and Holland as well as the newly established convents in England and America.

The Provincial was Father de Held, whom we saw in Baltimore while he was there on a tour of inspection of the American houses.