# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1860_S72
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

72 The Diligent Practice of the Catechism in Lutheran Times of Old.

the children and the servants; in the villages, however (why not in the towns as well?), it was to be "held with the old people as well, yet with due discretion, and dealt with especially with the old people, whose confession and understanding can properly be inquired into also in confession." With this the Coburg church order of the year 1713 agrees word for word.

A yearly examination in summer, on several successive Sundays, with both young and old, is prescribed by the Württemberg church order of the year 1660.

We see from this, too, how much the dear people of old valued the diligent practice of the Catechism. It was not enough for them to have the chief parts, together with the appendix, preached and examined through, which commonly had to happen in the course of a year; rather they also had it briefly repeated at certain other times, or at the very least once a year. If it is now a rare exception for the Catechism to be gone through entirely within a year, then there will certainly be no time left over for a repetition of it. Yet certain catechism-hours for new church members and communicants could well be, indeed by rights ought to be, appointed; for whoever wishes to dwell in a city, says Dr. Luther in the preface to the Small Catechism, ought to know and keep the law of that city whose privileges he wishes to enjoy.

3. On the Reading Aloud and Reciting of the Catechism.

Here too we must admire the motherly faithfulness of the Lutheran Church, which instilled into her children the pure milk of the Catechism drop by drop, by first having the whole text read aloud clearly, sentence by sentence, and then likewise the exposition, and having it repeated back or recited quietly by the people. In this way the old people, too — most of whom were unable to read, or did not practice memorizing at home — were given the opportunity to impress the wholesome words gradually upon their memory. Here too Dr. Luther showed the way, for he desired "that the Catechism be preached daily and read simply out of the book" (22, 609). Likewise the instruction of the Saxon visitors ordained: "at this sermon also (on the Catechism), for the sake of the children and other simple, unlearned people, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Articles of the Faith shall be spoken word for word." (10, 1962.) Similar provisions are found in several church orders. The Pomeranian one says: "In towns and villages the sexton shall, every Sunday, when the Gospel has been read at the altar, read aloud to the people one portion of the Catechism together with its exposition, and in the villages the pastor shall diligently preach the Catechism on Sunday afternoons and have it recited with the people." Accordingly the Catechism was read aloud every Sunday morning and recited in the afternoon, in such a way that each Sunday one of the six chief parts, and then in turn one of the three sections of the appendix, was taken up, and afterward one began again from the beginning.