Curious old churches and monasteries might often be seen by the novices on their long walks into the country.
All this antiquity was the more pleasing to the American novices because in their own land the forests, the rivers, and the everlasting hills are all that represent the distant past.
Besides twenty novices there were ten or twelve fathers at St.Trond, who either served the church or went about on missions; and there were also a number of lay brothers.

By nationality the greater portion of the novices were Belgians and Hollanders, the others being mostly Germans.

The language of the house was French, though Latin was sometimes used.

Of course this was an added difficulty to Brother Hecker, as he was now called, for he knew practically nothing of that language, though he had studied it a little.

But he attacked it resolutely and, as one of his companions said, learned it heels over head.