# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1860_S69
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Diligent Practice of the Catechism in the Lutheran Church of Former Times. 69

composed by M. Chemnitz and Jak. Andreä, prescribes, with appeal to the example of many churches, "that once a week a children's sermon be held, and the young — boys and girls — be trained to learn the catechism by heart with a short exposition, and to recite it. — In the afternoon on Sundays and on all other holy days, one shall properly expound a passage from the catechism and thereupon examine the boys on it."

The Austrian Agenda drawn up by Chytraeus in the year 1571 gives the following prescription: "After the sermon, let the children — young boys and girls — assemble at an appointed place, in the middle of the church; there let the parish minister, together with his colleagues, examine each one individually, or several of them, as to whether they know their prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, etc., together with the exposition."

The Agenda for the territory of Count Ludwig of Nassau, of the year 1609, may be heard to say: "The catechism shall above all things be pursued diligently and earnestly, so that in all the towns, on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, but in the villages on Sunday, the preachers shall recount and recite to the children and the untaught the chief parts of Christian doctrine, and after such recounting take up each one individually and inquire and ask of him whether he has also learned and retained anything of it." Here we have, in the briefest compass, the sum of Dr. Luther's above-mentioned counsels concerning the immediate succession of sermon and examination. Then it goes on to say, at the passage cited: "according to the occasion and understanding of each person, something shall be set before him and laid upon him, which he may recite and relate at the next gathering." Accordingly it would still be advisable today, not only in the sermon or in the examination, to announce the next catechism section in advance, but also to set individual tasks concerning certain verses, examples, hymns, etc.

A particularly clear passage is found in the Lübeck ordinance of the year 1647, which derives from Meno Honneken. "First, the preacher of every parish church of this city shall, on Sunday mornings in the early sermon (Matins), read Luther's catechism of blessed memory from the pulpit, as has been done hitherto, and thereupon, in the space of half an hour, explain and expound a portion of it to the congregation in the very simplest way, setting before them the correct verbal sense and wholesome use of it as briefly as possible; and afterward, in the following half hour, in a number of printed question-sheets set up for this purpose (composed by the said Honneken), shall — particularly on the portion on which the sermon had previously been preached — go over the same again with the German schoolboys and girls, pointing out in a few words whatever is necessary, and shall repeat it so often and so simply, and also clearly and intelligibly, that those standing about may hear it along with the children and gradually grasp and learn it, so that in the end they too, when questioned, may be willing to answer correctly without any shyness."