CHAPTER II.

CATECHISING.

1. Its Importance and its Object.

AMONG our functions, this occupies the first rank. Relig ious instruction, well attended on, renews continually the foundation of the Church, and is the most real and valuable part of that tradition by which Christianity, not only as a doctrine, but also as a life, perpetuates itself from age to age. In this tradition, the importance of the sermon, properly so called, is the greater in proportion as it is addressed to hearers who have been prepared by religious instruction.

Catechising is useful to those who are its immediate objects; it is useful to the parish, which has need to be, and, with its children, is catechised; it is useful to the pastor himself, who, by the duty of adapting religion to the apprehension of children, is incessantly carried back to simplicity and the true names of things. On all these accounts, it deserves our earnest attention, which it also demands by its difficulty, not the same for all pastors, but always great. For it is a work which, besides all the requisites to good He who preaching, includes special requisites of its own. catechises well will not preach badly; though he who preaches excellently may be a bad catechist.

It is true that catechising has repulsions which do not pertain to preaching; but it has attractions, too, which preaching has not.

It is also true that it encounters a formidable obstacle in the small agreement, or rather in the contrast between the teaching which the children receive from the minister, and that which they receive for the greater part of the time from

the world and their own domestic relatives.

But as far as this obstacle is not absolutely insurmountable, it presents itself to us less as an obstacle than as a motive to give the greater care to this part of the pastoral office, and as itself a reason for this institution.

The object of religious instruction is not simply to teach children their religion (as if they already possessed it, and it was theirs before they had learned it), but to lay in them the foundation of a life.*

It is undoubtedly an instruction, taking this word in its ordinary sense, and below its etymological meaning; but it is more properly an initiation into the sacred mystery of the Christian life. "My little children," says St. Paul, "of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you.”Gal., iv., 19.

We must not give the preference to the more intelligent children, to those who answer best, but in more limited minds we shall very often recognize a superiority of heart. Answers from the heart, when they are right, are of more value than the most remarkable ones from the understanding. A dull, vexatious child is perhaps more serious than a bright one whom we are fond of caressing.

2. General characteristics of Catechising - Source and Method of religious Teaching.

Instruction, as instruction, should be as solid and thorough as possible; still, we should aim at spontaneity and life; and therefore there should be in this study nothing of haste or of excessive labor (that which too much occupies the mind often leaves the heart indolent); nothing which should give it too much resemblance to an ordinary study; nothing which may leave behind it a disagreeable recollection. Let the preacher do what he can to make the child remember,

* See, for the development of this idea, the Catechetical Course.

through life, the instructions he gives him. Let the hours of *eaching be hours of edification; let the child have the feeling that the exercise is one in which he is to be active ;* let religious teaching have the character of worship:† Action and worship, these two characteristics, which ought to be interfused into one another, are too often lost sight of.

Where ought a child to find his religion? All that he can find himself, he must find, but that is little; all the rest is in the Bible. It is the Bible that must teach him. Catechising presupposes the Bible, which it does but digest and systematize; and we say in passing, that its use after the Bible has not the same inconveniences with its use before it. It would be a sad error to retrench it, but not so great a one as to retrench the Bible.

It is by their mutually interlacing one another that the ideas of the Bible live, as do the fibres of a living body: To separate them is to destroy their life. Facts may be distinct, and the mind may distinguish them; but in reality, in life, nothing is isolated; and all those individualizations, all those personifications, all those entities which appear in Catechisms, are fictions; all the truths here are but different forms or different applications of the same truth. But there are difficul ties connected with the use of the Bible; we must not pursue this path without reflection; a method is to be arranged. It is important to understand how we should read, what we should read, where begin, and then adjust every thing carefully to the measure of time we have at command.

* This feeling is promoted by interrogations which elicit the exposition.

+ See, on this subject, a passage from Madame NECKER, in her Education Progressive. Religion is never presented in its most sacred aspect to the young, if even the teaching of it is not worship," etc. Livre vi., chap. ii. (this and the following paragraphs).

See in the Semeur, tome ix., numéro 27 (1 Juillet, 1840), an article on M. MORELL'S Sacred History; and in the Appendix, note K, the portion of this article relating to the use of the Catechism.-Edit.

§3. Advice to the Catechist.

It would be well for the pastor to begin with the youngest children, and, if he is to have them under his direction for many successive years, to proceed leisurely with their instruction: If he is to have them for a short time, he will, I apprehend, be obliged to use a Catechism. But whether he will be under this necessity (and especially in the case now supposed), or whether the Catechism is to come after the Bible, the use of this manual will require special care. It is difficult to make a Catechism, and there are but few good ones. All things else being equal, I should prefer the most elementary-one which, conceived after a Christian plan, and reducing all things to a small number of principles, presents only the fundamental ideas on each subject, but expressed with vigor and feeling. Of all the Catechisms with which I am acquainted, I still give my preference to that of Luther. By adding to it a collection of passages, we shall have all we need.*

Whatever mode of catechising may be adopted, whether the Bible or some manual be its text, if it be public, it should be adapted to the class for which it is specially intended, I mean for children. It is very desirable that adults should take interest in the exercise, and be attendants on it, but we should not think ourselves obliged to change its character on their account. It would be unfaithfulness in respect to the children, and would be rather a damage than a benefit to the adults. Religion is never more penetrating, nor is instruction really more profound, than when Christianity is put in an infantile point of view. To present it thus, is to make it attractive to adults; the best sermon is not so attractive as a catechetic exercise, well managed.

Whether in public or private, we must prepare ourselves well for it, and not say to ourselves, I have only to speak to * Make use of good religious tracts.-Réal, Fabre.

children; for in this, as in every thing, maxima debetur puero reverentia.* It is certainly no easy matter to speak well to children the talent to do this belongs not to every onc. Our manner with children should be such as to give exercise to their intuitive power, incisory, penetrating; but then the danger is at hand of violating propriety. On this point I have pleasure in citing a remarkable confession of Bernard Overberg: In his journal he says, "I am again in school this inorning without sufficient preparation. O God! help me to reform in this matter. I am deceived by saying to myself, That will do well enough—you know your business; something else is more necessary than preparation for it; for every thing which can be postponed is less important at this mo

ent than this duty. The want of preparation involves many inconveniences; it makes teaching dry, confused, loose, diffuse; the children are embarrassed, they can not fix their attention, and the lesson becomes uninteresting to them and to myself."†

Preparation for catechising, even public catechising, called oratory,‡ does not include a discourse written and learned by heart, much less preparation for private instruction given in the pastor's domicile. It is most valuable when it has the character of a free and familiar conversation, difficult to be retained in a written discourse. But the best preparation for it should always be made. In general, if the elements of preparation, under its two forms, are not the same, we uay say they compensate one another.

Gentleness and patience are the first qualifications; ridicule is unpardonable; hardly less so is embarrassing a child

* JUVENAL: Sat. xiv., v. 47. "We can not be too respectful to a child."

↑ Notice sur Bernard Overberg, instituteur à l'Ecole Normale de Münster, etc., by J. H. SCHUBERT, professor at Münich; published in French by the Society of Neufchâtel,1840, p. 26.

t In German, Predigtcatechismus.