"Everybody here has declared that you have become a Protestant."
"I repeat to you that I am a Christian—hear the profession of my faith—a Christian according to the Bible; all that is written in that holy book I believe, and nothing that is not to be found therein."
"Then you do not believe in tradition?"
"Certainly not in that of the Decretals and of the Canons, which are exclusively of the Church of Rome, and in support of which she can produce neither authority nor reason; I believe in the traditions of the Church Universal; which includes not merely the Romish Church, but the Greek also, and all the reformed Churches in Christendom. For example, it is a true tradition that certain books are the true writings which compose the canon of the Holy Scriptures."
"Well, but do you not believe that there are seven Sacraments; that the Church has the power to absolve sins; that in the sacrament of the Holy Supper there is present the real body and blood of Christ?"
"My dear friend, what a world of questions all in a breath! Had we not better discuss them separately? Every one of them requires a long dissertation. But I can tell you I do not believe that you have ever had power to pardon the sins of any one, notwithstanding your office of Penitentiary, unless they were offences committed against yourself."
My friend, upon this observation, hastily quitted his confessional, in his eagerness to cope with the argument, and invited me to follow him to his own room, in the College of the Penitentiaries adjoining the church. I found there two other old Penitentiaries, whom I had formerly esteemed as my masters, Father Galleani and Father Chiappa. They were both glad to see me, and hearing that Father Borg had engaged me in discussion, they lent an attentive ear to it, in order to aid their colleague, if it should prove necessary. Thus I found myself alone against three stout adversaries.
"You do not believe, then," rejoined my friend, "that our confessors, approved by the Church, have the power of absolution?"
"I believe they may have, if the Church alone is sinned against."
"And if it be against God?"