Excerpt from Talks About Jesus WE have had no end of discussion over the questions, Who are Christians? And What is Christianity? And, so long as the present indefinite methods are followed, there is no apparent rea son why there ever should be any end. No first principles or fixed starting-point being held in common, each one chooses his own premises, according to the law of affinity, and then sails easily on to the conclusion he prefers. While very satisfactory to one party, it naturally has little effect on the other. Beecher said, some years ago, that most people go through the Bible like a magnet through a dish of sand containing iron filings, and come out of it with the texts they like sticking all over them. No better illustration of this can be found than the current discus Sion about Christianity. Let us see if there is not a method, or a few principles, that all intelligent and honest persons must accord as guides. To the Catholic, the ultimate authority is the Church. The Church's word is as divine as any recorded utterance of Jesus himself. And, in any case, it is the Church that must decide what Jesus meant, what the Apostles meant, and what the Fathers meant. To a Catholic, then, Christianity is what the Church, in the properly constituted way, pronounces it to be. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.