The tyrannical character of the law was recognized not by Catholics alone, but by all fair-minded men. The _Kreutzeitung_, and the _Germania_, differing in faith and thought, were in accord in this matter and complained bitterly of a law which meant only "the loss of that which had hitherto been the good fortune of Prussia, since it was clear that the Government and the National Liberals desired only the extinction of religion." The bishops protested with one voice, declaring the law "offensive to the essential and inalienable rights of the Church, and that grave perils and dangers were hovering over Church and State." Then as their protests and petitions remained unheard, they sent forth, on April 11, 1872, a collective letter informing their priests of their resolution never to yield except to violence: "Since no power on earth can dispense us from the obligation of watching over the Christian education of the little children who have been confided to us by the divine Savior, we are firmly resolved to continue to fulfil faithfully the duties of our pastoral charge in that which touches the popular schools which the law takes away, in principle, from the maternal action of the Church, and that duty we shall fulfil to the end, as long as it is not made absolutely impossible." The Government, however, which at first pretended to respect the rights of the Church, little by little removed many priests from the schools, took away as far as possible the priestly supervision, and favored mixed schools of Catholics and Protestants. The crucifix was then removed from the school rooms, together with all biblical pictures and the statues of the saints. The Bishop of Ermland, who in July, 1871, had excommunicated the apostate Wollmann, received from the Minister of Public Worship, Falk, a notification to the effect that: "as the excommunication was not a merely spiritual penalty, but had also a civil signification, so it could not be admitted that it should be inflicted only by an ecclesiastical superior, and that the latter in using it would violate the prerogatives of citizens placed under the protection of the State, and would commit an assault against the rights of the State, which can and ought to oppose it; hence in his action against the two excommunicated persons, he had gone beyond the limits of his ecclesiastical powers; this act was therefore annulled, and the Government would refuse any longer to recognize him who had so acted, as the Bishop of Ermland."