A new School Law was passed, and the Crucifix and images of the saints were prohibited in the schools. Many Catholic teachers resigned. The clergy and rich Catholic families built schools of their own, which were supported by gifts. Our Community provided schools for the poor children of Willebroeck, and furnished the classrooms with desks, books and all necessary supplies. The eight Sisters who taught received only 2,000 francs per year, which was less than fifty dollars for each Sister, and the predicament of the Sisters became more or less alarming. Several prominent gentlemen in the town, among whom was Mr. Erix, the father of our present Sister M. Aloisia, went around taking up collections for the pressing necessities of the Community. In the year 1866, when the cholera broke out in Willebroeck, three Sisters went to the hospital; and, without any compensation whatever, remained with their patients. Later, about the year 1891, the same disease broke out again. The Liberal Burgomaster, Mr. De Naeyer, being in great need of assistance, came to the Convent and asked for Sisters as nurses. Regardless of their past grievances, occasioned by the bitter opposition of the Liberals to the Catholic schools, eager only to do good, five strong, able-bodied Sisters, at the request of their Superior, left the Convent and went to the temporary hospital which had been hastily erected in the town. Here they remained day and night, in the midst of death and disease, at the bedside of their stricken fellow-creatures until the epidemic ceased. Strange to say, not one of the Sisters contracted the disease, although numbers of their patients died each day. Only two of those heroines of charity and self-sacrifice now survive: Sister M. Theresia and Sister M. Perpetua. These two Sisters, feeble and aged, were obliged to take flight into Holland last September, but have now returned, with several others, to their Convent home in Willebroeck. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV. THE CLOISTER. Proceeding from the little Grotto of Lourdes, where the Sisters kneel in the evening for their “Drie Wees Gegroeten” (three Hail Marys), one passes through the large, stone-paved playground, over the small yard, and enters the corridor leading to the Chapel. Passing through the yard, we observe the Novitiate on the left. This may be considered the preparatory school of religious life. Here no one is received under the age of twenty-one, without full consent of parents or guardians. Immediately a regular course of training begins, in which the duties and obligations of religious life are clearly presented. No applicant is permitted to take the vows who has not voluntarily responded to the requirements of the Novitiate.