Such were the May laws which despite the pleading of the Centre orators, and their innate and evident injustice passed the lower House on April 5, 1873. In the Landtag, however, the difficulty of pushing them through was at once evident. To win his point at all hazards moved Bismarck to a stratagem worthy of his evil genius. The Emperor was accordingly induced to appoint twenty-four new members to the Landtag, all of whom were warm partisans of the Chancellor. The best men of the Landtag pleaded eloquently for justice and right, but their voices were drowned in the chorus of hate swelled by these new accessions. On the 1st of May the whole bill was passed, and by the middle of the month they received the royal signature. As soon as the discussion upon the new laws was begun the German bishops addressed a memorial to the Government detailing with all precision and clearness the injustice and the necessary consequences of the proposed legislation. On February 5, they addressed a collective letter to the Landtag containing the principal portions of the former memorial, and declaring firmly: "For, if these projects, which are in direct opposition to the prescriptions and very essence of the Church, are adopted, not a Catholic, and still less a priest or a bishop, can recognize them, or submit voluntarily to them without betraying his faith." The petitions of the bishops had little effect with the Iron Chancellor, who smiled at the thought that fifteen aged prelates could turn him aside from his set purpose. On May 2, the bishops of Prussia addressed a circular to the priests and faithful of their dioceses, declaring: "The projects in question have not yet the force of law; if that should happen, however, with God's grace, let us defend unanimously and constantly the principles exposed in our memorials, those principles not being our own, but those of Christianity itself and of eternal justice. We shall thus accomplish our pastoral duty even until death, and as we stand before the tribunal of the divine Pastor Who has called us, and Who Himself gave His life for His sheep, we shall not be rejected as hirelings." On May 16, the day when the May Laws first appeared before the public, the bishops of Prussia sent a collective declaration to Secretary of State, again stating their claims to liberty of conscience and affirming the utter impossibility of submitting to these persecuting laws. "The Church cannot recognize the principle of a pagan State, according to which the civil laws are the only source of right, so that the Church can have only so much liberty as is conceded by legislation and the Constitution of the State. She cannot recognize such pretensions without denying the divinity of Christ, the heavenly Source of her doctrine and institution, and without placing Christianity itself under the arbitrary caprice of men."