the living exposition by the pastor. But it can and should support his
work, so that what he explains at one meeting may not be forgotten
before the next meeting, but may be fixed in the minds of the
catechumens by study at home.

Since the task of the pastor in catechization is not only to impart
religious instruction, but to impart it on the basis of that priceless
heritage of our Church, Luther's Small Catechism, the explanation here
offered follows the catechism closely. The words of the catechism are
printed in heavy-faced type and are used as headings wherever possible;
and thus the words of the catechism may be traced as a thread running
through the entire explanation.

Wherever he deemed it necessary, the author has added a fuller
explanation of the text of the catechism than that which Luther gives,
and has supplemented its contents with such additional matter as the
needs of our catechumens require. He does not agree with those
catechetical writers who maintain that the pastor, in his catechization,
must confine himself to an explanation of _Luther's explanation_. Such a
principle would exclude from the catechetical class much which our
catechumens should be taught. But all such additional matters are
introduced under an appropriate head as an organic part of the whole
explanation, thus preserving its unity.

This book is written in the thetical form instead of the traditional
form of questions and answers. There is nothing in the nature of
catechization which would require the use of the interrogative form in
such a text-book, and accordingly the thetical form has for years been
employed by numerous writers of text-books for the catechetical class in
Germany. While questions have an important place in catechetical