# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1864_S208
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

208 Christian Catechism; A Guide to Religious Instruction.

Mount, explains the commandments, in his conversation with Nicodemus begins at once with baptism; when the apostle Paul says, "I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified"; when the Bereans are commended for searching the Scriptures daily — how would it befit a Christian to return to these chief articles only from time to time?

The present catechism is "intended for Sunday schools, which are among the indispensable American institutions." Through instruction in the congregations concerning the great importance and the undisputed blessing of catechetical instruction in the Christian weekday schools, the indispensability of Sunday schools might well be pushed a little into the background. For the "various levels of instruction," to which the author also reckons the Sunday schools, "various teaching methods" are necessary. Perhaps it is one such teaching method that has led him to alter the order of the chief articles. He excuses himself by saying: "The departure from catechetical tradition in the arrangement of the material will justify itself by its connection with the course of religious upbringing; for children usually learn first the Lord's Prayer, then the Creed, and last the Ten Commandments." If the catechism is to attach itself to the course of upbringing, then a Christian instructed from the Word of God can, with far greater right, say that parents and teachers should, in their religious instruction, attach themselves to the arrangement of the Bible and of the catechism drawn from it (the layman's Bible); for God already, in Paradise, makes the beginning with the Law, and lets the Gospel follow. His messengers, the prophets, do likewise, and with one mouth Christ and the apostles preach: "Repent (Law), for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Gospel).

Now that the learned Doctor has once gotten into the business of improving things, who would wonder that a few more companion pieces should be added! He himself cannot help touching, with a few words, on the great Bible-improvement which he has undertaken for the good of the world of children. He admits, indeed, himself that the German Bible differs from the English mostly in "inessential points" — that is to say, that Luther's translation is in fact really sufficient for the understanding of every passage; nevertheless, he says, this transformation is necessary for reconciling it with the English edition of this catechism. Let us, then, think for a moment about the consequences that follow from our needing, for the sake of an English catechism, another translation of the Bible (?). Children who are held to some degree of obedience will, indeed, learn the newly translated Bible verses by heart without asking why; but if the teacher is to instruct them properly, he too must learn this new Bible; the parents will need to do the same — indeed, what use, in the end, are all the Bibles now existing, and what use even the Bible societies, if they do not give us a new edition, namely a