# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 04 26_S117
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

117

chism little or not at all, which of course has its ground in this, that they themselves have not yet learned rightly to understand, know, and prize it.

Examine your children who still go to school diligently on what they have learned in school, and inquire diligently besides whether they know their lessons well; for by this you will become a good support to your teacher in the school, which cannot but be welcome to him. — Accustom your children also betimes to bring home with them from church, each according to his measure, little grains and seeds, which they must then show you, say at table, and tell about; this is certainly, beside the food for the body, a good seasoning for the soul, and by it many an idle talk is also prevented. To be sure, the marking and retaining of the Word will not always go according to wish, and in this way too your patience will be tried; for the devil is not only among the grown people, but is busy enough among the little ones also, to steal the Word from them again, so that they shall not believe and be saved, and then it will well happen at times that in your inquiring you must recognize more the forgetful hearer of the Word. Against this one should not and may not then be indifferent; for it is indeed a great sin, in children also, when they hear the blessed Word of God lightly and straightway forget it again. One must reprove them for it for God's sake; to be sure not at once with the rod, for that would not be wisely done, but first with the Word of God itself. For although, when the reproof of the Word and the admonitions avail nothing, bodily chastisements must also follow, yet it is by the Word alone that the heart is bettered, and by virtue of the Word the childlike fear is kindled in the heart, which shrinks from thinking, speaking, and doing anything that displeases God. To the bodily punishments, if they are to work wholesomely, the Word of God must therefore also come; otherwise sin can at most be restrained outwardly thereby, but the heart remains stuck unamended in servile fear.

Now if one is to punish, one must also have a rod fit for punishing; for it is not seemly to strike with any chance piece of wood that happens to come under one's hands. If one therefore wishes to punish with the Word of God, it is likewise necessary to have at hand such passages as speak of the sin to be punished. We stand now for this time especially at the lightness in hearing and retaining the divine Word, and there, I think, it will not be unwelcome to you, dear brother, if I call your attention to some passages which seem to me quite fitting for such cases. The first stands Luke 11, 28. and reads: "Yea, blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it." Such a passage one can now simply analyze for the child, and say to him somewhat thus: Behold, here you hear that Christ does not pronounce blessed those who hear the Word of God and afterwards forget it again (as you have done now); but he adds to the hearing also the keeping or retaining. Hearing and keeping therefore belong necessarily together, and where this is not so, there one can make no claim to the blessing of Christ. — Further: "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." (James 1, 22.) and Luke 2, 19.: "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." — And because the light hearing and forgetting of the Word is as it were a contempt and rejection of it, and so runs straight against the 3rd Commandment, one can also cite the passage Hosea 4, 6., namely: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee," and then bring it home to the child's mind, what it means "to be rejected of God." One can also, by way of example, set forth the great danger to the soul into which he brings himself who hears the Word of God only superficially and does not take it to heart. And there the body serves as an excellent example. One can therefore say to the child somewhat so: behold, your body needs daily nourishment, and you provide it with this not only once, but several times in a day. Now if you were to withhold from your body the necessary nourishment for several days, it would surely soon become weak and sick, yes, at last, if it got no nourishment at all, it would have to die. But you have dwelling in your mortal body also an immortal soul, which likewise needs nourishment, and so much the more as it is nobler than the body. The nourishment of the soul, however, is God's Word alone, which we must hear and keep in faith. Whoever now does not do this, but lightly casts God's Word behind him, withdraws thereby from his soul the necessary nourishment and kills his soul thereby, not bodily to be sure, but spiritually. But when the soul is spiritually dead, the dear God dwells no more therein, and such a man then becomes again a dwelling of the devils, and must at last, if he does not turn back betimes and do true repentance, be lost eternally. — Behold, dear brother! these are some hints which I give you on your question in this matter, and if you follow them looking to God's grace and assistance, the good fruits will surely not be wanting. And apart from this, that it should perhaps remain fruitless in your children, at least in this one or that — which God in mercy forbid — you would yet have saved your soul, and your children could then not testify against you at the day of judgment. — But in the end you will yet object to me: To undertake such an arrangement and exercise with your children your earthly business affairs did not permit. By day you must work and would find little time, and in the evening you would be weary, et cetera. To this I answer: first examine whether such objections are also tenable, and whether the LORD Christ on the day of judgment will let them pass as a sufficient excuse. I believe not; but they will vanish like a mist before the sun and run away like water. As Christ once said to his sleeping disciples: "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" so will he surely answer the parents to such objections and say: "Could ye not daily break off one hour from your earthly affairs, to devote the same to your children for instruction in the ways of salvation?" — Ah, dear brother! where such objections still find place, there the parents surely still lack the right knowledge to what end their children are actually given them by the LORD, namely not to be to them an earthly capital, from which they might hope for rich interest, but above all to bring them up for heaven. — How many parents would surely in the evening — I will reckon only half an hour — set aside and forget their weariness, if they could earn 5 or 10 dollars in the same. Are then their children, on whom Christ has spent his precious blood, not worth as much as 10 dollars? — Ten dollars, yea the treasures of the whole world, are like a handful of sand, and will vanish in a trice, when once the elements melt with heat and the powers of heaven are shaken; but the blessing of a good discipline and admonition to the LORD, even of only half an hour, abides in eternity. I am convinced, if the gathering of treasure for heaven were in full swing with all, then objections such as those named, even if they stirred in the flesh, because of the sin still cleaving to us, would soon be overcome and put aside by the Holy Ghost. That it should be so, Christ says plainly, when he says Matth. 6, 33.: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things" — namely, what ye need for this short, temporal life — "shall be added unto you." And St. Paul Coloss. 3.: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." — Dear brother! I do not at all mean hereby to whiten myself, as if I did it to a hair as I ought; ah no, by God's grace I see my defects well and beg Him that He would let me recognize them ever more. I agree from the bottom of my heart with St. Paul: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. I count not myself to have apprehended. One thing, however, I say