But besides that our preaching was obviously designed to take their interests into consideration, there is an ordinance of the Church expressly appointed for her younger members, and neglected (most sinfully we think,) by a fearful majority of the clergy-that of catechising. The ends of the Church Catechism are by no means accomplished, nor the consciences of the priesthood clear in regard to it, merely by taking order that it be learned by the young of our flocks, or even explained up to the usual amount by masters and Sunday-school teachers, as we trust now to show. If we wished to vindicate the English Reformation from the all but unmixed censure to which it is now sometimes subjected, we might, out of a copious selection of materials, be contented with appealing to the Church Catechism as one of its results.* That surely could have been no such uncatholic time, as we have heard it pronounced, which produced so noble a digest of catholic truth, so comprehensive a summary of saving knowledge. Never before was any branch of the Church entrusted with so wonderful an organ of her prophetic office as the Anglican received in the fifteenth century, when this invaluable document was placed in her hands. The theology of the Catechism will, we are sure, be found to grow on us in proportion as it is studied; and whoever may complain of receiving no benefit from it, it will never be the devout and earnest catechist himself. Now here is a post assigned to the young, and a provision made for them, in the services of the sanctuary, of which they are shamefully defrauded. It is not enough to say that the children of the poor learn their Catechisms at school, and those of the rich at home; for good as that may be in itself it is no substitute for what the Church intended the ordinance of catechising to be. In the first place, what we want is to find a place in church for our children of whatever rank. Simply as Christian children, there would, as we think all will admit, be little use in sending those of the rich to a Sunday-school; for no real union between them and those of the poor would be effected thereby, and no instruction imparted such as they would not probably receive far more satisfactorily elsewhere. And-shall we confess the truth?-Sunday-schools are not especial favourites of ours. We deny not their necessity in populous places, where the principles and habits of parents are often such as to make it desirable for their children to pass the Lord's Day anywhere but under their roof. But this argument for them, valid though it be where it applies at all, presumes anomaly and evil. It is itself false in principle to separate a child from his parents and family during more than half the Sunday. And then what a All but the last section of the Catechism was produced during the crisis which we call the Reformation. strain on his attention! He is at school or at work six days of the week, and on that which ought to bring rest and refreshment we make him come twice to another school, and demand two attendances on the full services of the Church. Is this the way to make religion attractive to him? Now, leaving for a while those unnatural populations which we have sinfully allowed to amass themselves neglected and untaught, till their whole condition and our relation to them has become an aching perplexity, let us suppose an ordinary rural parish, neither better nor worse than the majority of such. Of course its Pastor will not find it the Arcadia he pictured to himself, whilst ground down by the marriages, churchings, burials, register-searchings, and committees of a large town, or whilst picking his steps through its noisome alleys. Of course he will not find the fresh pure air that now surrounds him a type that may be relied on of the moral purity of the place. Of course, he may lay his count on difficulties and discouragements enough. But still in such a place, there will be no need of anomalous expedients. The great laws of nature may require reinforcement, but they have not altogether given way. Family feeling is still strong, and a judicious pastor will hold it his duty to strengthen it yet further. What, then, can he do in furtherance of our present aim? We really think that the rubric and canons will supply him with all the guidance for which he need ask. Let him, instead of the evening sermon, catechise after the second lesson. Of course it will be found important that this ordinance, being public and liturgic, should be conducted gravely and without untoward accidents. The children, therefore, whom he questions, should be those on whose answers he can safely account; and he will be enabled to make the selection by his observations in the previous catechising before evening prayer, enjoined by Canon 59, in addition to his general knowledge of them. He will also put leading questions in following up the hints of the Catechism, such as shall win the answer from an ordinarily intelligent child, and by forcing him, notwithstanding, to a slight exercise of thought, shall fix the truth brought out firmly in his recollection. He will also make remarks himself, read passages of Scripture illustrative of the subject in hand, and in short, really preach directly to the children, but virtually to all present. Those who have observed the interest which the poor sometimes take in listening to catechising, will feel little doubt that the benefits of this particular ministration of God's holy word, are not likely to be confined to the young. Its being directly addressed to them, and their taking a part in it, give it an additional interest, especially to their parents and relatives; but, besides this, in explaining the Catechism many a subject is made clear to all, which the preacher in the pulpit generally presumes to be so already, many a piece of knowledge imparted, the possession of which is taken for granted in the majority of sermons. And this benefit may, perhaps, apply to the rich as well as the poor. Herbert's estimate of catechising is such as might be expected from him, but it is in point here, and therefore we quote part of it :— "The country parson values catechising highly. For-there being three points of his duty; the one to infuse a competent knowledge of salvation in every one of his flock; the other to multiply and build up this knowledge to a spiritual temple; the third to inflame this knowledge, to press and drive it to practice, turning it to reformation of life, by pithy and lively exhortations; catechising is the first point, and, but by catechising, the other cannot be attained. Besides, whereas in sermons there is a kind of state, in catechising there is a humbleness very suitable to Christian Regeneration. helping and cherishing the answerer, by making the question very plain with comparisons; and making much even of a word of truth from him. This order being used to one, would be a little varied to another. And this is an admirable way of teaching, wherein the catechised will at length find delight; and by which the catechiser, if he once get the skill of it, will draw out of ignorant and silly souls even the dark and deep points of religion. . . . . At sermons and prayers men may sleep or wander; but when one is asked a question he must discover what he is. This practice exceeds even sermons in teaching.”—Herbert's Country Parson, chap. xxi. It is no inconsiderable feature in the value of catechising that it is liturgic, both on the part of the catechist and the catechumen -that the latter take a part in the service, and that "Each little voice in turn Some glorious truth proclaims; What sages would have died to burn, Surely, if this be so, if we have here the assigned post of Christian children as such, it should be filled by rich and poor alike. Let it not be said that the former have no need of the instruction that is to be gained from it. Even were the upper classes nearer the true mark of lay Christian knowledge than we think they are, it would be no disparagement to them to say, that they cannot so administer the Word of Life,-that they have not such a treasure out of which to bring things new and old as the ordained pastor, supposing him the scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, which he ought to be. And thus, too, may the spiritual union of different ranks become very close in consequence of having begun very early: thus may our children be taught that they indeed belong to another family than that in which they were naturally born, thus may they livelily apprehend that they are members of one another by being members of Christ. Some of our popular preachers may perhaps despise catechising, as of inferior worth to their sermons, and fit to be entirely delegated. We are very sure, however that the systematic undertaking of the duty in some such way as we have been pointing out, would have the effect of raising the standard of theological knowledge among the clergy. It would be difficult indeed to calculate the amount of gain which would accrue to the rich from being thus subjected to the appointed training of the Church. From being early used in a practical way to have and to benefit by a pastor, they may wish for one through the rest of their lives. At present, they think of the clergyman, except with a view to the public offices of religion, as existing mainly for the sake of the poor. Many families would stare on being told that they needed his visits and his counsel on the same principle and in the same way as they do: a fatal reserve often exists between them and him on the very subject which ought to be the chief tie between them: in, we fear, most families of the upper classes he is little more than one among the herd of visitors and acquaintances; that he has to give account of their souls and the souls of their children, is little thought of either by him or by them; scarcely a word or a deed betrays the faintest recognition of this. His advice is little asked for concerning the children; he is seldom consulted about their training; they are not taught to look up to him as necessarily a friend, as a spiritual relative and guardian. But were they catechised like others in Church, this would cease to be the case. The due and dexterous performance of the duty requires, as we have said, an acquaintance with the condition and capacities of the children. The procuring this must lead to spiritual intercourse between them and their clergyman. Devout parents, who are at present negligent of this, would feel the blessing of it, would feel how it strengthened their own hands, and helped them in the discharge of their own duty. Then the time for confirmation would not come upon the clergyman and the young of the upper classes as it does at present,-a time of mutual shyness and discomfort; it would be but the ripening of a process which had long been going on; a joy to which both had long been looking forward in common. Then, too, might the men of the upper classes lose that fearful reserve on religious matters which unhappily, but. often blamelessly as things are, characterises most of them at present. Then might their pastor feed them, too: then might he be their especial sympathiser in joy, and comforter in sorrow: then might his society be courted for better reasons than it is at present; and thus, the whole tone of their intercourse being thus improved and raised, might priesthood and laity alike present us with a nobler and statelier sight than the stunted and perverse religious growth which we see all around us now. Other directions are open on which we cannot enter now. The verse we have twice quoted from the eighth Psalm, at once suggests the part children must take, with joy to themselves and us in sacred music. Things do seem tending to a development there, which we hope will, as it ought, be used in furtherance of the aim which we have now had before us. In laying it down, however, as we have now done, that the religious development of children should be liturgic, we must not be understood as denying them the exercise of good works. The last page of our former article will vindicate us from such a supposition. These, however, we contend, as we did then, should be almost entirely domestic, and altogether private. Their only public religious action should be in Church; there alone can they be seen by others in a Christian capacity, without the imminent risk of injury to themselves. Elements of Electro-Metallurgy. By ALFRED SMEE, F.R.S. Second Edition. Longmans. 1 vol. Pp. 318. 1843. Glyphography; or, Engraved Drawing. Palmer, 103, Newgate Street. Electrotint. By T. SAMPSON. 1843. London: Edward Palmer. 1842. In our number for June, 1842, (vol. iii. pp. 631-644,) we traced the History of Electricity from its earliest days, six centuries before the Christian era, in the time of Thales, to the date of Coulomb's investigations; to whom we are indebted for the subjection of electro-statical phenomena to the rigorous rule of mathematical analysis, and the establishment of the fundamental principles of electro-statics as an independent science. In that article we were chiefly occupied with the elementary theories appertaining to the subject: in the present, we propose to consider some of its practical applications. Natural science presents to us both laws and works: it has both its credenda and its agenda; its researches are both lucifera and fructifera; its end is both "the knowledge of causes and secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire to the effecting of all things possible."* The latter of these was a continual subject of high and bright anticipation to Lord Bacon; and, throughout all his writings, he dwells upon it with enthusiastic hope. In that interesting philosophical romance, the New Atlantis, he assigns a principal place to those "fellows" of "Solomon's house" who devote themselves to the Practical. "We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for works, as for plain demonstrations of causes, ... and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call dowry-men, or benefactors." * New Atlantis. |