"Then there is another thing you said, that what made you a Catholic was, that you came to see that the Catholic religion and primitive Christianity are identical—so I understood you. Am I right in this?"
"Certainly," I replied, "that is precisely my proposition; stated in that form, the whole question is put, as it were, in a nutshell."
"Just so," he answered, "if that were proved. So now tell me just how you proved it to yourself."
"With all my heart, sir," was the reply. "Then see here, we must first lay down our definitions of what I mean by primitive Christianity, and what I mean by the Catholic religion."
"Certainly," he assented.
"Primitive Christianity, then," I continued, "is soon settled. By it I mean the religion taught by the apostles to their disciples, and by those disciples taught to others, and so on—the religion of the New Testament."
"Very good," he broke in; "no one can find fault with that, only we have always been taught that the religion of the New Testament, a primitive Christianity, was substantially the same as Protestantism, so that it never struck me till this moment that there was any fair doubt that the primitive Christians were Protestants, all but the name; and of course we know that the name was not given them at that day."
"All right! We will see about that later on," I continued. "Now let me tell you, in as few words as I can, what I mean by a Catholic."
"Well, I am all attention," he said.