When we arrived at Forest Gate in 1886 the mission was in the hands of the three ablest friars of the order, F. David, F. Aidan, and F. Bede; the success of the mission was mainly due to the devoted exertions of the two latter friars, for F. David, a man of much erudition and ability, was intended rather for the supervision of our studies. He had been professor of philosophy at the friary in Ghent for ten years previously, and had, therefore, been chosen by the Belgian authorities to supervise the studies in the new English branch of the order. Unfortunately the long years of exclusive attention to study had made him extremely unpractical, and our studies proceeded in a most desultory and irregular fashion. There were so few of us in the community, and our professor had so many other offices to discharge, that little attempt was made during the first six months to organise our work. All our religious exercises were hurried through early in the morning, making more than three consecutive hours of prayer of divers kinds, and, as often as not, we had the monastery to ourselves during the day. Once or twice a week, at any hour of the day or night, our professor would interrupt the course of his ministerial and parochial duties and his studies of Sanscrit at the British Museum to
secret by the few of my colleagues who knew it, but was accidentally communicated to me.
‘What has he become?’ I inquired.
‘Oh! a Theosophist or Agnostic, or something of that kind,’ was the lucid reply of my discriminating colleague.
