Synopsis
PREFACE About five months ago, a zealous priest, after speaking of the books that I have published, wrote in his letter as follows: “Permit me to suggest to you what, in my humble opinion, is badly wanted in our barren religious literature and heretical language: A series of correct and concise Catechisms. I know of nothing more needed, and better calculated to do good. Three numbers would abundantly suffice. “No. 1. For little children in spelling classes—for adults lamentably uninstructed in what is necessary to know and to believe, in order to save their souls, and who, at the same time, are so slow of intellect that only the simplest and most necessary elements of the Catholic faith and practice can be imparted to them—for colored people, and others that cannot read, and especially for that legion of stray sheep in humbler walks of life, who are picked up and brought to the priest for instruction, confession and communion on occasions of missions or in Paschal time, and who have neither time, inclination, nor sufficient instruction to read bulky mission books or dry catechisms filled with long technical answers, or learn much by heart. “What is necessary for these classes, is not so much that they may be able to explain, as they should know what they must believe and do in order to save their souls. Therefore, in first catechisms, meant for the uninstructed, not to say stupid, the questions should be longer, and the answers shorter, in order that the child may be instructed in, and, as it were, introduced to, the proper answer, by the very wording of the question, that the feeble memory may not be burdened by a load of words, which it is unable to carry with ease or profit. The true idea of a catechism for the classes of people just mentioned is, that by frequent questions on each point, it wakens the intellects of the uninstructed or the torpid to the matter it is wished to communicate. Hence, not only great care must be taken in framing the questions correctly, but these questions must be multiplied for the entirely uninstructed, especially so as to ask attention to each point that it is desired to teach. To illustrate: It would be a very faulty infants’ catechism that would have under one question and answer—‘Q. How many Gods are there? A. There is but one God in three persons, each equal to the other Persons, whom we call the Holy Trinity.’ “No. 2. For the use of Parochial Schools, and of catechumens who have more opportunity or more capacity. “No. 3. For colleges, academies, high schools, for persons of cultivation, old as well as young, for professional men, etc. This number should especially be plain, popular, comprehensive, and interesting, not so dry and clumsy, nor so full of unsatisfactory, as most books of this class are. Objections, however stupid and threadbare, should be noticed and briefly refuted. “The object of such a series of catechisms is, clearly and deeply to impress the truths of religion upon the minds of the young. A clear knowledge of these truths will, with the grace of God, gradually gain the affections of youth for the Divine Teacher of our religion, Jesus Christ, our Blessed Lord and Redeemer. In order, however, to reach this great object, it is necessary that in each number should be found, as much as possible, the same order and the same questions and answers for the chief truths of religion, so that these truths, by the additional questions and answers in another number, may be but more clearly explained and more solidly established. This rule, I think, ought to be followed in a series of catechisms, as otherwise confusion might be created in many a child’s mind and memory. On the contrary, truths clearly proposed and explained and often repeated in the same words, and in the same order, cannot fail to remain deeply impressed upon mind and memory.
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