Oppression does indeed often bring the work of the Lord to a timely and palpable development, and we may echo the prisoner’s words: “Would years of hard work have given evidence of so close a union as well as this short and fleeting sorrow?”[17] At the same time two other addresses reached him which were a source of particular joy: the one from a good number of Belgian noblemen, who thereby drew forth a remonstrance on the part of Prince Bismarck, the other from two imprisoned bishops of the far west who were themselves confessors of the faith, and protesting by their personal suffering against the evil spirit of Freemasonry. They were the bishops of Para and Pernambuco, who, profiting by the journey of a priest to Europe, took occasion to express their love and sympathy to the fellow-sufferer in Germany who was bearing the self-same testimony to Catholic truth as they themselves. Comfort, too, came from the Holy Father, who sent first a gold medal, and then, on the feast of St. Conrad, a telegraphic message of greeting and good wishes. But the price of these favors was suffering and greater suffering. The threat on the part of the secular power to depose the bishop was now carried out. Many and grievous had been his shortcomings, according to the standard established by the May Laws, and amongst the accusations brought against him was the erroneous charge that he alone amongst the German bishops had worked in favor of the Papal Infallibility at the Vatican Council. Extensive quotations from his pastoral letters were given in the indictment, whilst the words he had addressed on various occasions to his faithful children, their constant devotion to him, the legal measures recently carried out, and the cause now pending were alleged as the ground why he could not continue to exercise his office. He was invited to appear on the 5th of January, 1875, to answer these charges, after which day, and having simply refused to accept the act of deposition, it was nailed to his door inside. There it remained quietly hanging, says the bishop with dry German humor, “without my casting one single glance upon its contents.”[18] The feast of Christmas, which occurred in the midst of these cares, found him not altogether joyless. The prison chapel bore for him a resemblance to the lonely grotto of Bethlehem.