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Page 22
And yet how sadly neglected and abused, even by those who bear
its author's name! It is neglected, if not entirely ignored, in
countless Lutheran homes and Sunday-schools. It is even neglected by
many so-called Lutheran pastors. They set at naught the testimony of
nearly four centuries. They set their own opinions above the testimony
of the wisest, as well as the most deeply spiritual and consecrated
witnesses of their own Church. They prefer the baseless, shallow,
short-cut methods of this superficial age. Some of them have even
joined in the cry of the fanatic, and called all catechisation in the
Church dead formalism! Fortunately, their number is growing rapidly
less, and many, who were for a while carried away with the tide of new
measures, are asking for and returning to the good and tried old ways.
Not only is this Catechism neglected, but it is and has been much
abused. Abused, not only by its enemies, who have said hard things
against it, but it has been and still is abused, like all good things,
by its professed friends. And doubtless it is the abuse by its friends
that is largely responsible for the neglect and contempt into which it
has sometimes fallen. Thus in the family, it is still too often taught
as a mere task. The home teacher often has no higher aim than that the
children should learn it by rote--learn to rattle it off like the
multiplication table, or the rules of grammar.
Worse than this, it has often been used as an instrument of
punishment. A child has done something wrong. It is angrily told that
for this it must learn a page or two of the Catechism! The task is
sullenly learned and sullenly recited; and the Catechism is hated
worse than the sin committed. Then too, it is slurred over in the
Sunday-schools, without an earnest word of explanation or application.
The learner does not realize that it is meant to change the heart and
influence the life.
This same sad mistake is also made by many pastors in the
catechetical class. Strange as it may seem, this mistake is most
commonly made by those very pastors who profess to be the warmest
friends of and the most zealous insisters on the catechisation of
every lamb in the flock. Thus we find not a few pastors who catechise
their classes after the schoolmaster fashion. They go through the
exercise in a perfunctory, formal manner. They insist on the letter of
the text, and are satisfied if their pupils know the lessons well by
rote! To urge on the dull and lazy pupil they will scold and rage, and
even use the rod! The Catechism becomes a sort of text-book. The
pupils get out of it a certain amount of head knowledge. There are so
many answers and so many proof-texts that must be committed to memory.
And when all this is well gotten and recited by rote, the teacher is
satisfied, the pupil is praised, imagines that he has gotten all the
good out of that book, and is glad he is done with it!
Now we would not for a moment depreciate the memorizing of the
Catechism. It is of the most vital importance, and cannot be too
strongly urged. What we object to--and we cannot object too
strenuously--is the idea that head knowledge is enough! There must of
course be head knowledge. The memory should store up all the precious
pearls of God's truth that are found in the Catechism. The mind must
grasp these truths and understand their meaning and their relation to
one another. But if it stops here, it is not yet a knowledge that
maketh wise unto salvation. In spiritual matters the enlightening or
instructing of the intellect is not the end aimed at, but only a means
to an end. The end aimed at must always be the renewal of the heart.
The heart must be reached through the understanding. To know
_about_ Christ is not life eternal. I must know about Him before
I can know Him. But I might know all about Him, be perfectly clear as
to His person and His work, and stop there, without ever knowing Him
as heart only can know heart, as _my_ personal Saviour and loving
friend, _my_ Lord and _my_ God.
Here, we fear, many ministers make a sad mistake. They are too
easily satisfied with a mere outward knowledge of the truth. They
forget that even if it were possible to "_understand all mystery and
all knowledge_"--intellectually--and not have charity, _i.e._, deep,
fervent, glowing _love_ to God in Christ, springing from a truly
penitent and believing heart, it would profit nothing. The true aim
and end of all catechetical instruction in the Sunday-school, in the
family, and especially in the pastor's class, should ever be a
penitent, believing and loving heart in each catechumen.
We have, in a former chapter, shown the duty of the Sunday-school
teacher in this matter. The pastor should likewise use all diligence
to find out in whom, among his catechumens, the germs of the divine
life, implanted in baptism, have been kept alive, and in whom they are
dormant. Where the divine life, given in holy baptism has been
fostered and cherished--where there has been an uninterrupted
enjoyment of baptismal Grace, more or less clear and conscious--there
it is the pastor's privilege to give clearer views of truth and Grace,
to lead into a more intelligent and hearty fellowship with the
Redeemer, to deepen penitence and strengthen faith through the
quickening truth of God's word.
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