# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1858_S207
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lutheran-theological Pastors' Library. 207

namely 1. selection, scope, and content, 2. source, and 3. arrangement of
the same. The subject of the second part is catechetical form. This part
in turn falls into two sections, the first of which sets forth the
treatment of the catechetical material, and the second the treatment of
the catechetical subject. As regards the treatment of the material, the
material aspect is regulated first, and then the formal aspect. The book
comprises 328 and XVI pages and costs 1¼ Thalers. In some respects we
still give the preference, over Kraußold's, to the following older
work: "the Well-Instructed Catechist, by Johann Jacob Rambach. 6th
edition. Jena, 1730." In the introduction Rambach first develops the
concept of a catechetics and likewise gives a history of it. In the
first chapter the necessary natural and spiritual gifts, and the duties
of the catechist before, during, and after the catechization, are set
forth. The second chapter treats of the catechist's conduct toward his
catechumens, according to the differing stage of age and understanding
on which they stand. The third chapter deals with the catechization
itself, namely what and how one is to ask, and finally how the catechist
is to conduct himself with regard to the answers received. The sixth
edition, and those following (the first appeared in 1722, the eighth in
1739), contain also a very valuable appendix, in which Rambach gives
excellent hints concerning the catechetical treatment of the chief parts
and their individual sections. The booklet is indeed small — including
the appendix, it comprises no more than 136 pages in small octavo — but
it is precisely the brevity and conciseness of its treatment that gives
it all the greater worth. Whoever has made the contents of this little
book his own, and besides has thoroughly studied a few good, more
extensive catechisms — among which Luther's Large Catechism*) is above
all to be counted — may well have enough in these aids, under God's
blessing, to become a good catechist. Kraußold too says of Rambach's
"Well-Instructed Catechist": "A booklet still excellent to this day!"

3. A third branch of practical theology in the narrower sense is
Liturgics. In order to orient himself in this field and to arrive at an
independent judgment, the preacher ought indeed, besides his own in

*) It is a special grace that has fallen to our own lot here in America through the
appearance of the following work: "An Exposition of the Catechism from Dr. Luther's
Writings and the Symbolical Books, compiled by Ernst
Gerh. Wilh. Keyl, pastor of the evangelical-Lutheran St. Paul's congregation in
Baltimore. Part I (containing the First Chief Part) from Beck in Nördlingen. Part II
(containing the Second Chief Part) from Heinr. Ludwig in New York." Would that this
incomparable work might also be bought and studied in earnest — it would bring
incalculable blessing, and would put the estimable author and publisher in a position
soon to deliver the continuation of the work. It would indeed be a sad testimony to the
state of our Church here, should the continuation of this "Exposition of the Catechism"
have to be discontinued because it found too little circulation.