The Prussian Government had earnestly desired to remain on amicable terms with the papacy; it had no wish to enter on a theological quarrel; but gradually the conviction was forced upon it that the question was not a religious but a political one--whether the power of the state should be used against the state. A teacher in a gymnasium had been excommunicated; the government, on being required to dismiss him, refused. The Church authorities denounced this as an attack upon faith. The emperor sustained his minister. The organ of the infallible party threatened the emperor with the opposition of all good Catholics, and told him that, in a contention with the pope, systems of government can and must change. It was now plain to every one that the question had become, "Who is to be master in the state, the government or the Roman Church? It is plainly impossible for men to live under two governments, one of which declares to be wrong what the other commands. If the government will not submit to the Roman Church, the two are enemies." A conflict was thus forced upon Prussia by Rome--a conflict in which the latter, impelled by her antagonism to modern civilization, is clearly the aggressor. ACTION OF THE PRUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. The government, now recognizing its antagonist, defended itself by abolishing the Catholic department in the ministry of Public Worship. This was about midsummer, 1871. In the following November the Imperial Parliament passed a law that ecclesiastics abusing their office, to the disturbance of the public peace, should be criminally punished. And, guided by the principle that the future belongs to him to whom the school belongs, a movement arose for the purpose of separating the schools from the Church.