# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1860_S65
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lehre und Wehre.

Volume VI.    March 1860.    No. 3.

(Submitted by H. P. Keyl.)
The Diligent Practice of the Catechism in the Lutheran
Church of Former Times.

At last year's proceedings of our district synod concerning the practice of the catechism, and in particular concerning the connection of the sermon with the examination, I was charged to show, in the "Lutheraner," how our church in former times conducted itself with respect to this matter. The solution of this task appeared to me, however, all the more difficult the more I lacked many of the resources needed for it. Recently I received, from a friend's hand, a small work of Dr. Rudelbach's, published already 18 years ago: Official Opinion on the Reintroduction of the Catechism Examinations in the Kingdom of Saxony, together with a historical discussion of the catechism institutions in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany. I found in it, within the narrow compass of 82 pages, so much that was instructive and encouraging that I resolved at once to communicate what was most worth knowing of it in this periodical, and to add here and there some further remarks of my own. But first I wish to call attention to the following regarding the origin and immediate purpose of this work.

The Stephanite emigration in the year 1838 had, to be sure, many errors and sins in its train; yet it was, nevertheless, in the good hand of God, a wake-up call to the church authorities in the old fatherland to bear in mind the remedying of various abuses — concerning which, notably, opinions were sought from several universities in the Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg, and from the superintendents in the Kingdom of Saxony, especially on the reintroduction of the catechism examinations. Now if in this there already lay a de facto admission of the general decline of this wholesome practice and of the irresponsible negligence of the supervisory authorities, this beginning of a return to the catechism institutions of former times was nevertheless already to be gladly acknowledged as a step forward for the better and as a testimony to that effect — even though one has reason to fear that, since that time, the catechism examinations in Saxony have still not been held everywhere, and least of all after the model of Dr. Luther's teaching and manner of teaching.