# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1864_S214
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

214 Christian Catechism; A Guide to Religious Instruction.

Still more obscure is what follows: "The remaining three petitions treat of the poverty and needs of man, from which we lift ourselves up to God in prayer." Is it not likewise a riches of God when we confess that he feeds his creatures? (The new catechism, incidentally, has by treating the sixth and seventh petitions as one, on the basis of the little word "but," only six petitions.) But the good Doctor reaches the height of learning and obscurity in his explanation of this section: "When one has exhausted the whole dictionary of edification, one gladly returns again and again to this prayer." Just imagine a schoolmaster reading this! How is he to give his schoolchildren a description of this dictionary? That even the most advanced pupil finds no sense here hardly needs mentioning. On, if possible, an even loftier buskin the author proceeds in the following explanation: "One never tires of it" (the Lord's Prayer). It is indeed true that one ought never to tire of it, but who can say that he is never weary of it? The holy apostle Paul, at least, could not yet boast of that concerning the Christians of his time; for he writes at Romans 12:12: "Continue instant in prayer." And has this exhortation perhaps become superfluous for our own day? Now, after the author has shown, from the words of the preface "which art in heaven," that we should lift up our hearts to heaven, he asks: "Is God, then, not also on earth? Answer: God is omnipresent; heaven is his throne, and the earth is his footstool." This question and answer plainly lack the explanation of why we should nevertheless lift our hearts heavenward in prayer. For without it the pupil concludes either that he has no need to lift his heart to heaven (since God is, after all, everywhere), or, if he does have need to, that God then does not hear prayer on earth. Because Dr. Schaff prays, "Our Father, who," etc., he finds it necessary to present the form customary among Lutherans, "Vater unser" [Father our], as a custom stemming from the Roman Church, and adds, as if by way of excuse: "The power of custom in matters of religion is very great, and one must handle pious habits and prejudices with tender forbearance." If the good Doctor really wished to treat this formula with tender forbearance, why then did he not retain it? But that a prejudice is at work here he cannot prove at all. Even granting, however, that it were such, does he wish to spare it as well, or rather to instruct us concerning it? For a prejudice, especially one of an entire church communion, surely ought not to be spared. He does indeed instruct us that in English, without distinction of confession, "our Father" is prayed; yet two centuries ago people also prayed — and doubtless not without reason — "Father our." Dr. Schaff's instruction is perhaps meant to suggest that the Lutherans, by adopting "Unser Vater" [Our Father], should pave the way toward union with the Reformed. Certainly, if nothing else stood in the way of union except this one thing, then holding fast to "Vater Unser" would be a strong and most foolish prejudice indeed. — In the next remark