After three years of study he was ordained to the priesthood on June 1, 1844, after which he was appointed assistant in the little town of Beckum, in Westphalia, where he shared the labors of two young priests, one of whom, Brinckmann, afterwards also became a bishop. After two years he was sent as pastor to Hopsten on the confines of Hanover, where he spent his time in those duties which had become so dear to his heart, the care of the poor and the instruction of the young. In 1848 he was sent as a deputy to the national Diet of Frankfort from a district composed chiefly of Protestants. Out of the 600 members present there, he found that forty were priests, while there were a few bishops and many notable Catholic laymen. Ketteler appeared in the tribune, a man with no political record and no literary glory. But his first speech aroused enthusiasm and proclaimed him one of the orators of the day. Ketteler demanded liberty of religious association for all creeds, liberty of education, and autonomy in the commune in all that concerns the public school and the interior administration. After the assassination of Prince Lichnowsky and General von Auerwald by the insurgents, the Abbe Ketteler was charged by the Assembly to pronounce the funeral oration. Fifteen days after this event the first great Catholic Congress was held at Mentz, and instituted a programme in which Ketteler was for nearly thirty years to have a leading part. This was the Catholic action in the Social question. In 1850 William Ketteler was consecrated Bishop of Mentz, and entered at once into his role as the great social reformer of Germany. His solicitude for the poor was constant and practical. For the sick poor he called into his diocese the Franciscans of Aix-la-Chapelle; for the orphans and abandoned children he founded establishments in 1856 and 1864. For the workingmen he founded, in 1851, a Geselleverein, or Workingmen's Association, one of the first of its kind, besides bureaus of aid, and circles and societies for procuring cheap lodging for the needy. He had remarked that the numerous class of servant girls were almost altogether without religious attendance, moral protection, or material assistance. With the aid of the Countess Ida von Hahn-Hahn he founded refuges for their kind, and looking then toward those others to whom the allurements of the world had proved too fascinating, he established a House of the Good Shepherd. His work in the direction of the poor and of the laboring men went on without ceasing. His Establishments of Hospitality for the Workers provided board and lodging at the price of eighteen pennies a day. In 1856 the Association of Notre Dame de Bon Secours came to the aid of those who, while out of a place for a time, could find lodging until another situation were found for them.