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only ; that he had accordingly substituted a system of daily instruction , which consisted in dictating to his pupils a series of questions , the answers to which were texts from the Bible , without any admixture of human
language 5 that this plan , purely scriptural , produced the happiest results ; and finally , that , if he had not consulted the Company on this innovation , it was because he was doing only what other pastors had done before him , and what was done every Sunday by those who filled the office of catechists in the town . P . 12 ,
After making this statement M . Gaussen retired ; but not before he had heard the correctness of his two last assertions called in question . To say nothing of the slight analogy which exists between the catechists of the town and the pastors of the country , it was affirmed that one of the pastors , to whose case he was supposed to have alluded , had prayed the Company to allow him to make use of a catechism of his own , which permission had
been granted him only for a year , and as an experiment ; and that another pastor , who had entertained a similar reject , had given it up , on the remonstrance of a brother clergyman . When M . Gaussen had again retired , the Company deliberated on the facts which had just come to their knowledge , and passed resolutions to the effect , that the catechism ought certainly to be used in the religious instruction of the young , that the
infringement of this rule was not to be tolerated , and consequently that the pastor of Satigny should be enjoined to conform to it , though he was at the same time at liberty to make any proposal he might think fit , as to the religious instruction of the young , and the use of the catechism in particular . This decision was agreed upon unanimously , in a meeting at which many friends of M . Gaussen , and advocates , like him , of orthodoxy , were present ; and the Moderator , who communicated it to him , observed that , if he had regularly attended the meetings of the Company during the last three years , he might have known that the revision of the catechism was at that time an
object of their attention , and he added that the committee which was sitting would be very glad to receive any observations he might have to make upon it . M . Gaussen was beginning to reply , but , upon a bint from the Moderator that his observations would be more in place at another time , he announced his intention of sending his answer in writing . This answer was long in coming , but it came at length , at least the first part of it ; and we proceed to make our readers acquainted with the contents .
In the beginning of his letter M . Gaussen recapitulates and enlarges upon the reasons which he had given personally before the Company for discontinuing the use of the catechism . These reasons , although involving considerations which , we allow , must necessarily have their weight with every honest and conscientious pastor , do yet appear to us to be quite beside the question—which is , not whether certain doctrines , by M . Gaussen esteemed fundamental , are or are not contained in the ' catechism prescribed ; not whether the catechism itself be in its form and method adapted
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The Pastors of Geneva and M . Gaussen . 609
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VOL . V . 2 X
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1831, page 609, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2601/page/33/
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