SIR,—Is it not misleading to contrast the two Catechisms as
having each its distinctive national impress ? There was no Scotsman on the Committee which drew up the Shorter Catechism. Dr. A. F. Mitchell says (" Catechisms of the Second Reformation," 1886, p. 26) : "Though in Scotland, as elsewhere, this Catechism has been, and deservedly so, the most popular of all the productions of the Assembly, it was the one with the elaboration of which the Scotch Commis- sioners bad least to do." The same leading authority clearly shows that the opening question and answer have their close analogues in English Puritan precursors of the Shorter Catechism, but not in the earlier Scottish Catechisms. Surely, too, the use of the Shorter Catechism, both as a manual of instruction and as a standard of ministerial "orthodoxy," was widespread in England among Noncon- formists till within living memory. In regard to the opening question, it may be remembered that Dr. Isaac Watts was led to frame a Catechism of different type, because, on asking "What is the chief end of man ? " he got from two children the ingenuous answers : "His head," and " Death."—I am,
Sir, &c., A. G.
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