Cardinal Newman: Q & A in Theology, Church History, and Conversion

… Religion is so deeply interesting and sovereign a matter, and so possesses the whole man, when it once gains its due entrance into the mind, that it is not wonderful, that, as worldly men quarrel fiercely about worldly things, so, through the weakness of human nature, particular theologians have had unchristian disputes about Christian truths.

Now the very reason I became a Catholic was because the present Roman Catholic Church is the only Church which is like, and it is very like, the primitive Church, the Church of St Athanasius.… It is almost like a photograph of the primitive Church; or at least it does not differ from the primitive Church near so much as the photograph of a man of 40 differs from his photograph when 20. You know that it is the same man. (v. 24; To Mrs. Helbert, 30 Aug. 1869)