# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1860_S75
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Diligent Practice of the Catechism in Lutheran Times of Old. 75

pulpit and otherwise on occasion, movingly remind the people "that the dear Catechism must also be diligently pursued privately in the homes."

A very wholesome practice is also this: at family devotions, to have the Large Catechism read, sentence by sentence, by the children and servants, and then to question them on what has been read.

One should at first take only half a page at a time, read it through attentively beforehand, and form for oneself a few questions, which one first puts to oneself and answers from what has been read. Even if, at first, the questioning of the children goes somewhat haltingly, and the answers often do not come as one wishes, or fail to come at all, one should nevertheless press on confidently and know that within a few weeks it will go better. Above all, however, preachers could further this practice if they were to instruct, on a few occasions, those heads of households who showed themselves willing — namely by first questioning a short passage themselves several times over and teaching them how to find the answers from what had been read, and then encouraging individuals to question the others on what had been read in like manner, whereby they would soon gain ever more courage and desire for it. I know from my own experience and that of others how manifold is the benefit bound up with this practice, and how, in particular, both questioners and answerers are thereby driven to attend more closely to the individual sentences, expressions, and words, so that the whole loaf is broken into small pieces and thus offered and enjoyed. Going through the Large Catechism once in this manner brings more benefit than having it merely read aloud ten times in succession. All this holds true also of the reading and questioning of the Bible. Whoever, incidentally, wishes to know more of the daily practice of the Catechism after Dr. Luther's counsel and example, I refer him to the third volume of "Der Lutheraner," No. 18.

Dr. R. opens the way from this practice to that with adults, with the following words: "It was not the household alone, considered in and for itself, that was kept in view in the spread and establishment of the catechetical exercises; rather, just as the Church consecrates and hallows every stage of the Christian life, so it was intended that all the relations of life should be firmly grounded, and thereby faithfully preserved, through that examination out of the Word of God whose kernel and sum the Catechism presents; and just as all estates enter into the Church, while each individual calling, through this incorporation, becomes truly Christian and pleasing to God, so it was striven that the streams of blessing from catechetical instruction should be imparted to all."

Here belong, in the first place, the provisions that proceeded especially from Electoral Saxony, that at the so-called registration a common examination out of the Catechism should be held with all who were to commune, which was formerly called the exploration. Such catechism-hours were held in Weimar, from the year 1710 onward, before every communion. I myself have made it my practice for several years now to read the Large Catechism aloud and question upon it, from which I hear, almost every time, gratifying echoes in private confession.