ON CATECHISING. BY THE HON. AND REV. SAMUEL BEST, RECTOR OF ABBOTT'S ANN; LATE FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE. LONDON: JAMES DARLING, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. BROWN, SALISBURY. M.DCCC.XLIX. INTRODUCTION. IN pressing a subject which I believe to be of vital importance at the present moment, on the ministers and teachers of God's heritage, I shall allow my anxious wish to promote the ordinance, to explain my reasons for having first presented them through the medium of a periodical, and pass on to such practical considerations as may smooth the way for a return to this laudable practice of the Church. We are apt in the outset to sum up difficulties and objections as a barrier to our consideration of the removal of them. With the view of obviating this dangerous practice of minds more ingenious in making than removing objections, I propose, as an introduction to the subject of Catechising, to offer a few remarks on the manner in which I believe it can be carried out to the satisfaction of the catechist, as well as the benefit of the * British Magazine. catechumen, and at the same time be reconciled with the views and customs of our congregations. There is both difficulty and danger in disturbing these. There is a serious call upon us to effect a gradual return not to primitive, but to the authorised and unexceptionable practices of the Church; not as though a form were insisted on for the mere form's sake, or for the gradual assertion of a principle which we do not avow, but as involving the avowed principles of the Church, and setting forward the cause of light, and life, and the truth, as it is in Christ Jesus. Such I believe to be Catechising,-the instruction of the rising generation, not of one but of all classes, in the principles of their faith. This becomes daily more and more urgent upon us, as efforts which we cannot disregard are made to draw a line of separation between religious and secular teaching. In our hands, as ministers of the Church, and as provided by the Church, is the religious teaching of the Lord's day, and the portion of this directed to be spent in Catechising is beyond the control of any interference, while the blessing on the seed thus sown may give, and probably will give, a value and a power to it that under no other circumstances can be reasonably expected. With regard to the difficulties and objections that stand in the way of our resumption of this venerable practice, the first is presented in the children themselves, many of whom are unwilling to stand up in the face of the congregation. This is a natural difficulty, and the result |