made. In addition, Van de Velde suffered from seasickness for a full month of the crossing. Father Nerinckx advised Van de Velde to enter Georgetown College and the novitiate of the Society of Jesus rather than the seminary at Bardstown. After he completed his two-year Jesuit novitiate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Van de Velde continued his academic and theological studies for eight more years. Priesthood Novitiate While in Belgium, Van de Velde had mentored a young man named Judocus Francis Van Assche. Father Nerinckx was making a funding trip to Belgium in 1820 and delivered a letter from Van de Velde to Van Aasche which strongly urged his former pupil to join Van de Velde in the new land. Although Van Assche received the letter in July 1820, it was not until September 23, 1821 that he arrived in Philadelphia. During the delay Van Aasche was able to recruit eight other men to come with him and Nerinckx on their return to America. Father Nerinckx, himself, had recruited two men to become lay brothers at his own mission of Loretto in Kentucky. However, after their arrival in Philadelphia, the two groups briefly separated. Van Assche's party of nine took a steamboat to Baltimore, where Archbishop Maréchal attempted to get Van Assche and his traveling companions to remain and attend his seminary. Two men agreed, one knowing he would not be able to join the Jesuit novitiate due to an outstanding debt to his own brother. The remaining seven traveled overland by carriage to join Van de Velde at Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Father Nerinckx, who had advised the young men on shipboard to prefer the Society of Jesus to any other ecclesiastical opportunity, had temporarily separated from the group when they landed in Philadelphia, and now visited them at the Jesuit seminary in White Marsh, Maryland to congratulate them before returning to Kentucky, from which his "begging trip" had begun more than a year before. The seven had begun their probationary periods there October 6, 1821. The recruitment of seven new applicants from Europe on the basis of a single letter from Van de Velde was an impressive accomplishment. At the time he had hardly finished his own two-year novitiate with the order. This contingent would eventually become the core of the Jesuit mission presence in Missouri. Librarian From the period 1818 to 1831, Van de Velde was