# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1860_S67
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Diligent Practice of the Catechism in the Lutheran Church of Former Times. 67

which closes with the words: "therefore we should indeed hold the catechism dear and worthy, and impress it upon the young with diligence, for therein is the true old, genuine, pure, divine doctrine of the holy Christian church summed up." Concerning the individual prescriptions of the various church orders, Dr. R. lets himself be heard thus: "All of them aim to instill desire and love for the wholesome truth; in all of them one sees clearly how Luther's footprints, dripping with blessing, are, as it were, impressed upon them; it is like a lasting sweet fragrance in the house of God that is poured out here; all hands and powers are set in motion, all members of the body of Christ labor toward the realization of the one great task: the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry."

1. On the Connection of the Catechism Sermon
with the Examination.

That this was the manner counseled by Dr. Luther for the churchly practice of the catechism we already see from a passage of his "German Mass" of the year 1526, where he says: "this instruction must now take place in such a way — since as yet there is no properly constituted congregation — that it be preached beforehand from the pulpit at certain times or daily, as need requires, and at home in the houses, evening and morning, be recited and read to the children and household servants, for those who wish to make them Christians. Not merely so that they learn the words by rote, as has been done hitherto, but that one ask from point to point and let them answer what each means and how they understand it." — This is without doubt the first trace of Dr. Luther's conviction regarding the interdependence of preaching and examination. For he intends that the catechism be preached beforehand from the pulpit, but recited or read in the homes, and then be questioned through point by point, and indeed above all in the church; for what he says there about the questioning of individual points, and about the little pouches of faith and love into which each single one of those points is to be tucked, he undoubtedly requires not of the heads of households but of the preachers, immediately after they have preached it beforehand (for otherwise most hearers would forget it entirely); finally he calls this questioning a childish game not to be despised, and shows how highly necessary it is, apart from, alongside, and after the preaching of the catechism, in that at the close of the passage in question he says: "Otherwise the people go daily to the sermon and go away again just as they came; for they think it counts for nothing more than the time spent hearing it; no one thinks of learning or retaining anything from it." (Walch edition, 10, 273–276.)

Most clearly of all, however, Dr. Luther expresses himself on this at the close of the short preface to the Large Catechism, as follows: "It should not, however, be enough that one merely grasps and can recite the words (namely, the chief parts of the catechism, in the questioning at home and in the schools), but the young people should also be let go to the sermon; especially at the time appointed for the catechism, so that they