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552 BENEDICT VADAKKEKARA Some of the Fathers had no doubts that the Capuchins had to aim at establishing themselves in the Catholic strongholds in the South of the country if they wanted to have a steady flow of vocations to their Order. If our Father General is in real earnest of success, if he wishes to establish the Order in India, he cannot confine himself within the sphere of Capuchin .Mis– sions, where Catholics are few and conversions scanty; but he should establish monasteries in such places where Christianity flourishes and is firmly established and where there is real prospect for a big number of recruits for the priesthood and religious vocations 157 • In the meantime the missionaries of Agra tipped the scales in their favour when they began airing their settled belief that it was precisely the locating of the Study in the Friary of Mussoorie that had taken the bloom off the great strides that the Order had already made in taking root natively. Hence any arrangement that did not provide for the shifting of the Study away from their Friary would have only a cosmetic effect. They took a defensive position when they bewailed the whispering campaign against them that they had no interest in the Novitiate and the Study. Contrariwise, no other Capuchin Mission in India had made as much sacrifice as the friars of Agra for the Order's nascent institutions 1 58 • The suspense arising from the uncertain future of the Novitiate and the Study had tellingly a demoralising effect on the staff and the students. It was difficult to say if the stories bandied about had some basis or if they resulted from the kite-flying exercise of some mischief-makers. The unsettled state of affairs gradually sapped their optimism and the confidence. A staff member penned: ''We suffer much on reason of the uncertainty of the aim we have to intend; and this uncertainty has a bad effect on the minds of our pupils. Some missionaries speak in one way, others in another; and I experienced myself during the year that our students get troubled for it" 159 • essi, perche non i nostri? Anche i nostri giovani sono tutti nati e cresciuti nei piani, quindi godono piu salute ai piani che ai monti". 157 AGCap G 68, II, Novizjato , Studio, Fr Callixtus, "Damao - Mussoorie: Memorandum, Lettere...": Fr Felix of Anvers' rejoinder to Fr Commissary's letter of 14 July 1926. 158 AGCap G 68, II, Novizjato e Stud.to, Fr Louis to Fr General, Mussoorie 18 August 1926: "Finche non sara venuta dalla Paternita Sua Rev.ma una decisione, e sara aperta una casa per lo Studio, nell'andamento della nascente istituzione ci sara incertezza e confusione". 159 AGCap G 68, IV, Novizjato eStud.to, ''Relationes Particulares": Fr Roger of Izegem to Fr General, Mussoorie 25 Januaiy 1927. Fr Roger was later made Bishop of Lahore.