ON THE ART OF CATECHISING; BEING A Posthumous Work OF THE VEN. EDWARD BATHER, M.A. LATE ARCH DEACON OF SALOP, IN THE DIOCESE OF LICHFIELD, EDITED BY HIS WIDOW. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A CHARGE, ON SCRIPTURAL EDUCATION, DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY, AT THE VISITATION, IN 1835, BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Third Edition. LONDON: FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE. 1852. 100.3.27. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. IN publishing the posthumous part of the following work, the Editor feels it her duty to give some account of the circumstances under which it was composed, in order to explain the incomplete state in which it necessarily appears. The Charge prefixed, is a reprint of one which was delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Salop in the year 1835, and of which two editions have since been published. On its first appearance it attracted considerable attention; and the Author received many gratifying assurances of its usefulness, both in his own peculiar district and elsewhere. Finding that the work of education was stimulated by the interest thus excited, and urged by many of his friends to give to the world the benefit of his experience as a Catechist, he promised, when he should find leisure for the work, to develop his method still further, and to explain and illustrate it by means of specimens. For some time his numerous engagements prevented his fulfilling this intention; and it was not till the summer of last year, and within three months of the close of his life, that he was able to attempt to do so. He then commenced the present work, and hoped to have produced a volume which should have served as a manual for the Teacher, whether Clergyman or Schoolmaster; and which besides instruction in the art of catechising, should have contained much catechetical matter on the Liturgy of our Church, on many important passages of Holy Scripture, and on the evidences of Christianity. But it did not please God to spare him to accomplish his purpose. Nevertheless, while his strength lasted, he pursued his object with surprising energy and with unabated zeal; desiring, as he often said, to be of some use in his Master's service so long as his life should be continued. During the wearisome hours of a lingering illness, and in a state of almost total blindness, his great pleasure and his daily business lay in the dictation of these pages, till increasing weakness obliged him to cease from his labours. Such are the circumstances under which this little work was written. Though feeling very strongly the disadvantages which must attend its appearance in its unrevised and unfinished state, the Editor is yet induced to offer it to the public, by the advice of some whose opinion she has been taught to regard very highly, and who consider these disadvantages more than counterbalanced by the value of the matter which the volume contains, and the assistance it seems likely to afford to the inexperienced catechist. Meole Brace, a |