The following is a review of Ashbel Green’s Lectures on the Shorter Catechism by Archibald Alexander in 1830. Alexander (17
72-1851) was the first President of Princeton Seminary and a venerable patriarch of American Presbyterianism. The following presents the bulk of this review, which treats the warrant and nature of the good old plan of Presbyterian catechizing.
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[If] we do not entirely misinterpret the temper and taste of the times in which we live, doctrinal catechisms, and lectures explanatory of such catechisms, are not the books which will be sought after and read with avidity. The religious taste of most readers is, we fear, greatly vitiated by works of fiction and other kinds of light reading. Nothing will now please, unless it be characterized by novelty and variety; and while many new means of instruction have been afforded to our youth, in which we sincerely rejoice, we are so old fashioned in our notions, as to feel regret that in our own church those excellent little summaries of Christian doctrine, the Westminster Catechisms, are falling with many into disuse. Our numerous (more…)
West Port Experiment 