"Now, my dear uncle, you will understand the earnestness of a man who feels that it is beyond the power of words to express the depth of his convictions. These, indeed, I cannot impart to you. I cannot give you the gift of faith. But so far, at least, I feel sure you will go with me, in admitting that the facts I have just stated should lead serious Protestants to admit that they have been wrong in assuming that the Catholic religion, although a great religious fact, majestic for her antiquity, universality, and unity, as all must admit, has yet a mark against her which dispenses them from all search after truth in that direction. My last words shall be those which, though they seemed to St. Augustine to be uttered by the voice of a child, were yet, as he tells us, blessed to his own conversion: Tolle, lege'—Take and read.'"
Just as I had finished my last sentence, we drove into the approach to the mansion, where the ladies were already assembled on the lawn, a sign that the arrangements for dinner were completed, and that all were awaiting only the return of the master of the house. So, kindly greetings, inquiries after absent friends in Europe and America, and the other happy little accompaniments of an evening at home in the country in lovely autumn weather, effectually put a stop to all further conversation on the engrossing topics which had occupied us during the morning.
The next day rose bright and beautiful, almost too cloudless and sultry, if we had had a journey before us, and six or seven hours to pass in the stifling heat of ———. But we had agreed to take a day's holiday in the country, and, after breakfast, we strolled out together to the summer-house by the brook, where the daily papers and the last reviews, American and English, were laid out on the library-table of the cool retreat beneath the broad chestnut trees, which served my uncle as his study during the summer months. The other members of the family had their own reading and work to attend to. So we had the prospect of a long forenoon of leisure for reading or conversation. After the news of the day had been read and discussed, we each took up a review and read on pretty steadily for an hour or more. Then my uncle began to light his cigar, and I saw that he was watching when I should have finished the article I was reading, and that he was ready for a chat. When he saw that I was closing the volume, he began: "I have thought a good deal over all you said yesterday. Just give me a memorandum of one or two of the books you spoke of." I pencilled them down on the back of a letter and handed it to him; he put the memorandum into his pocket-book.
"Now," he said, "I should like to hear how you make out that the primitive Christians were Catholics. You know all my family are strict Episcopalians; there was one of them a bishop over in the old country, and we always took great pride in the Church of England; and I know we were always taught, and I've read several books about the old aboriginal British Church, which seemed to me to prove pretty clearly that, up to the year 600, or thereabouts, after Christ, the early Christians in Britain knew nothing of the authority of the Bishop of Rome, and opposed his claims when they were put forward by Augustine on his coming over to convert the Saxons."
"Well, sir," I replied, "curiously enough, I have just been reading your last number of the Saturday Review, which, as we all know, is no friend to Catholics, and I have been much struck by a very able article which, I think, you will find well worth reading. If you will allow me, I will read you a passage which may serve me as a text for what I shall have to say in answer to your question about the British Church, and how I make out that the early Christians were Catholics: 'The distinctive principle of the English Reformation was an appeal to Christian antiquity, as admirable, and probably as imaginary, as the "Golden Age" of the poets.' The writer then goes on to say, 'that the era of the Reformation was before the age of accurate historical criticism. The true method of historical criticism was as yet uncreated, and it is not too much to say that whatever accurate knowledge we now possess of the church of the first centuries, has been obtained within the last fifty years, and that a better acquaintance with the remains of antiquity has convinced us that many doctrines and practices which have been commonly accounted to be peculiarities of later Romanism, existed in the best and purest ages of Christianity.' (Saturday Review, 1866.)
"Ah! I should not wonder," he replied, "if they had hit the right nail on the head there; I must read that article—how is it headed?"
"Oh! you can't miss it," I answered, "the title is Primitive Christianity.[Footnote 57] Well, then, to answer your question. We argued yesterday as to the great leading doctrines on which Protestants and Catholics are at one, and which all Christians hold as essential. Now for what you would call the distinctive doctrines of the Catholic religion, or as the writer in The Saturday expresses it, 'what are commonly accounted (by Protestants) as peculiarities of later Romanism,' but which we Catholics hold to be no less essential truths of Christianity, part and parcel of the same revelation which teaches us the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation. I will name three which I think you will admit are sufficiently distinctive. We hold, therefore:
[Footnote 57: Saturday Review, winter quarter, 1866.]
"First. That for Christ's sake we are to obey the church, which he has made his infallible witness in the world, until he shall come again. 'The church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.' (I Tim. iii. 15.)