The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 12

uction. We endeavored to show that Christian parents are under the most

ical class ought indeed to be in the family, with father and mother as teachers;-that this home class ought to be carried on so long and so persistently, that in it the children would become perfectly familiar with the contents of the book; so familiar indeed, that they would know all the parts that Luther wrote perfectly by

ome instruction in the Catechism. To this end each teacher, in a Lutheran Sunday-school, ought to be familiarly at home in this most important text-book. The teacher should endeavor so to teach these lessons, that the pupil would learn t

s. It would then be the pastor's part, as it should be, to review the contents with his class, and thus to find how well the preparatory work had been done. Then could he devote his time an

ee to and oversee the memorizing of the answers. It is his office to expound and apply the truth, to make t

, to the pastor's class, they have done their whole duty. They do not so much as help and encourage the children to learn the lessons that the pastor assigns. And thus does this part of the pastor's work, which ought to be among the most delightful of all his duties

of Christ, see to it that you do your part in their religious instruction. Insist on it, and even use your parent

" The new measures and methods of modern revivals are more acceptable to the fickle multitude. They seem to point out a shorter route and quicker time to heaven. As a boy once said to the writer: "I don't want to belong to your c

up. And in order to clothe their spiritual cowardliness and laziness in a pious garb, they say: "The Bible is enough for us." "We don't need any man-made Catechisms." "It is all

do they sometimes use these pious phrases to quiet a

? Is it in the nature of a substitute for the Bible? Does it purpose to set aside

in the reader or learner a more intelligent appreciation and love for the Bible. It contains nothing but Bible truths. Its design is simply this: To summarize and systematize the most important

out the statement-that those who appreciate and have studied a sound scriptural

insic value of Luther's Small Catechi