The first of these laws, "on the appointment and education of ecclesiastics," required that all ecclesiastics should be of German birth, that they should have graduated from a German gymnasium, and have spent three years in a State University, after which they should undergo an examination directed by the prescriptions of the ministry of worship. The State was to supervise all establishments of ecclesiastical training, even the Grand Seminaries which alone were to remain, all the lesser Seminaries being closed. The President of the Province had the right to reject every appointment or transfer of ecclesiastics made by a bishop, and the bishops should be obliged to notify the President of all appointments and transfers; moreover, the President could impose a fine of one thousand thallers upon any bishop who should not appoint a person acceptable to the ministry, and this appointment should be made within the space of a year; otherwise he could lay hands upon the property of the bishop or of any other ecclesiastic refusing obedience, nor could the bishop appeal from such judgment to the crown. This civil punishment rendered the ecclesiastic unfit for the divine ministry. A fine was to be imposed upon any priest who after being deposed by the Government should dare to exercise his ecclesiastical functions. A second law assigned the limits within which the bishops might judge in ecclesiastical affairs, the penalties they were to pronounce, though always with the consent of the civil authorities; an appeal was instituted from the judgment of the bishop to the High Court of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs, which Court could order the suspension of a bishop who had unjustly condemned a subject. There was to be a penalty for the bishop who should refuse to surrender to the State the records of any ecclesiastical trial; moreover, the High Court could justify itself for any deposition of a bishop by the plea that his continuance could not be permitted for reasons of public utility. A third law regarded those who should wish to abandon the Catholic religion. It was a measure of encouragement to apostates whose defection it surrounded with the most benevolent and watchful care. The only thing necessary to legalize any act of apostasy was that the unfortunate should appear before a civil official with a declaration written and sealed, and the payment of five silver groschen (12 cents). The fourth and last law, "on the limits of the use of means of punishment and correction in the Church" was one hardly likely to have any honest interest for the bishops, since it forbade, what they were never likely to do, the physical punishment of lay people, and any punishment attaining the fortune or the honor of the citizens. It was a law which hoped that by formally forbidding any criminal act, would lead an inflamed public opinion to believe such a criminal act had really been perpetrated.