After these beginnings have thus been made, and while the home instruction is still going on, the work of the Sunday-school teacher comes in as a help to the home class. In every Sunday-school class there ought to be, with each lesson, some instruction in the Catechism. To this end each teacher, in a Lutheran Sunday-school, ought to be familiarly at home in this most important text-book. The teacher should endeavor so to teach these lessons, that the pupil would learn to love and appreciate the Catechism more and more. Thus, the school ought to be a helper to the home. And thus, home and school together, working in harmony for the same end, would prepare the children for the pastor's catechetical class. If this good old-fashioned custom were kept up in all our households and schools, then would the pastor's catechetical class be more of a pleasure and a profit to himself and his catechumens. It would then be the pastor's part, as it should be, to review the contents with his class, and thus to find how well the preparatory work had been done. Then could he devote his time and energy to what is really the pastor's part of the work, viz., to explain and set forth clearly the meaning of the Catechism, and show how it all applies to the heart and life of every one. It is not at all the pastor's place, and it should never be expected of him, to act the school-master, to see to and oversee the memorizing of the answers. It is his office to expound and apply the truth, to make the doctrines clear to the minds of the learners, and to show how they are all related to the individual life. But, alas, how little is this understood or practiced! How many parents, who call themselves Christians, and Lutherans, seem to think that they have nothing to do in this whole matter! They seem to think that if they send their children once a week, for a few months, to the pastor's class, they have done their whole duty. They do not so much as help and encourage the children to learn the lessons that the pastor assigns. And thus does this part of the pastor's work, which ought to be among the most delightful of all his duties, become wearisome to the flesh and vexatious to the spirit. Scarcely anywhere else in all his duties does a pastor feel so helpless and hopeless and discouraged, as when standing week after week before a class of young people who have such poor instructors at home. Christian parents, if you desire your sons and your daughters to become steadfast and useful members of the Church of Christ, see to it that you do your part in their religious instruction. Insist on it, and even use your parental authority, if necessary, that your children learn the Catechism and regularly attend the pastor's instructions.