A

CATECHISM

ON

THE PARABLES

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF BIBLE CLASSES, AND
THE HIGHER CLASSES IN SABBATH SCHOOLS.

BY JOHN M. AUSTIN,
AUTHOR OF "A VOICE TO YOUTH," ETC.

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."

BOSTON:

A. TOMPKINS,

SABBATH SCHOOL DEPOSITORY, 38 CORNHILL.
1850.

BX

9921
A8

1850

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1842,

BY ABEL TOMPKINS,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED BY

GEORGE A. CURTIS,

N. ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, BOSTON.

PREFACE.

In preparing the following work, the chief aim of the author has been conciseness-to compress as much information as possible on the important subjects investigated, into a book of suitable size for Sabbath schools. How far he has succeeded in accomplishing this object, he leaves for others to judge. That a Class Book of this description was greatly needed in our denomination, there can hardly be a doubt. It is well known that the advocates of the popular religious errors of the day depend almost entirely upon the parables for the support of their sentiments. Take these parables out of their hands, and there are but few plain declarations of Scripture to which they could resort in proof of their forbidding doctrines. Let any discerning individual attend but for a short period, upon the preaching which is now very singularly termed evangelical, especially in seasons of revíval, and he will readily perceive that a repetition and a literal construction of the highly figurative language of the parables, are the chief means resorted to for the purpose of arousing the fears and blinding the judgment of the people. Children and youth are exceedingly liable to be erroneously impressed and led astray by these means. It is to throw around them a shield of light which shall defend them from these influences, that the following pages have been prepared.

Although we have already two excellent works on the parables, yet from their size and expense, it is not to be supposed they are within the reach of the great mass of Sabbath school scholars. And even if they were, it is doubtful whether they could be induced to peruse treatises of this elaborate description, in such a manner as to impress the contents upon their minds effectually. But it is different when the parables are placed before children as a study. In committing the explanations to memory, the scholar must necessarily acquire a fund of information which he would not be likely otherwise to obtain, and much of which he will re