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BIBLE AND CATECHISM.

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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 difficulties 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.

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.† 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 one. 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 morning 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 moment 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 may 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.

In German, Predigtcatechismus.

in the presence of the others. Gentleness should be paternal, but manly. Love for children is the sure means of an amiable deportment toward them, and will happily replace an affectedly mild and evasive manner. As to familiarity, it should certainly not be wanting, but it should be serious : Seldom should smiling, never laughing, have place in religious instruction. We must be interesting, not amusing. We have the way of intermixing anecdotes with our instructions; but they ought to be interspersed with moderation; to be serious, and well brought forward.

The physical comfort of children in the time of the catechetical exercise is not to be disregarded.

The exercise should not be continued too long: We should especially guard against going beyond bounds in exposition, and economize time for questioning, which less fatigues children, because they have a part in it. We should not say every thing in the exposition, but leave it to the questioning to complement general ideas by particular ideas. The worse way of conducting the business is to allow of digressions which exclude from view the principal object, and from which neither the children nor the pastor can well return. This is the danger of the Socratic method; an excellent one, and also too little in use. In the absolutely Socratic mode, the child is too quickly persuaded that it is he who has found out every thing, who has said every thing: This will injure the pastor's authority, and the child himself, by exciting his self-love. And then we can not foresee how far we shall go with our familiar detail in giving a simple answer to the child's question. We should avoid too much circuity.

We can not judge of a child with certainty from the answers he gives in the course of instruction; we must, toward the end of the course, see and examine him by himself: They are not the best who know the most. We ought to see him also, in order to establish him in the true views of the communion to which he is to be admitted. We must ex

plain the Lord's Supper to the child. In a practical point of view, the Lord's Supper is a subject about which many prejudices prevail. This is, in part, the fault of the human heart. In general, the child has no prejudices, but he is 1gnorant; he should well understand what he is about to do; and the confirmation of the baptismal vow should be presented to him in its true character. The formula used among us is very defective; it says nothing of the Lord's Supper, nor of that grace of God which it is so necessary to have in thought when so awful a promise is made as is required in. the formula. This promise should rather be a declaration. The formula, then, ought at least to be complete.

The age at which this confirmation takes place among us* seems to be suitable, having regard to the idea of confirming the baptismal vow freely, with knowledge of its nature. What, besides, is to be had in view as to the question of admitting or not admitting, is true knowledge of the mystery of piety according to each one's capacity, and especially the intelligence of the heart, the religious appreciation of this mystery. For the first, we have a measure; for the second, we have no sure means of knowing it. In respect to the last point, of course, unless we have decisive evidence that the child has dispositions directly contrary to Christianity, we ought to admit him. We have a right to adjourn, to refuse confirmation; but it is exorbitant to arrogate to ourselves the right of preventing another pastor from granting, if he thinks he can do so, what we have refused. We have discharged our responsibility if we have given our brother warning.

* Sixteen years.