# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1861_S210
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

210 Some Matters Concerning the Division within the Leipzig Mission.

kill, but to preserve from death. In His own time we shall yet thank Him for
the woe with which He has done us good." —

Dr. Besser in Waldenburg in Silesia, formerly, as is well known, co-director
at the Leipzig mission house alongside Dr. Graul, has likewise found himself
moved to issue a public "Declaration" concerning the matter on April 13 and
to publish it in a supplement to the Pilger aus Sachsen. The declaration is
as follows:

"Since Mr. Schütze, teacher, in his writing 'Defense of Missionary Ochs and
of his cause in the caste controversy, against the Mission Collegium at
Leipzig,' etc., has named my name in such a way that the appearance falls
upon me of agreeing with the contents of this indictment, I hold myself
obliged to make the following declaration.

It is correct that the first draft of the 'Decision' of the Mission Collegium
in the caste matter (June 1857) came from me. However, the same came into
being in constant consultation with Dr. Graul, and he gave his assent with
the express declaration (not withheld from Missionary Cordes either) 'that
the principles expressed in it can very well be understood in the sense of a
sound Lutheran mission practice.' When, contrary to expectation, the Decision
was misused in order to proceed hastily and in a legalistic, driving manner
against the evils of caste, the Mission Collegium saw itself compelled to
oppose these doings by the 'Ordinance' of December 21, 1857. I already had
occasion at the general assembly of 1858 to state that I regard it as a
distortion when one declares the Decision to be 'set aside' by this Ordinance.
The Decision was from the outset intended to serve as the foundation for the
mission-governing activity on the spot, and in this nothing has been changed
by the Ordinance, which seeks provisionally to regulate the handling of the
particular provisions of the Decision according to the norm of the general
principles set at its head. It is strange that of all people Missionary Ochs
complains of the abolition of the Decision — he who in his recent utterances
overthrows the foundation on which the Decision rests. This he does by
decidedly rejecting what is there stated at the very outset as an
'indubitable fact': 'that the Tamil caste institution includes something
civil, something popular — analogous (similar) to our German system of
estates and guilds, especially in the Middle Ages — and that this natural
side of the caste distinction (of lineage, and within lineage, of guild) is
not in itself to be placed in the domain of sin and of the devil.' For the
rest, I have meanwhile become convinced that in particular the rule laid down
in the Decision — that Christian freedom from caste is to be exercised
everywhere 'where brotherly love requires it' — is inadequate and
impractical. Where does love require it? To that various answers are
possible. Thus the Decision here in fact decides nothing. The question of the
truly evangelical treatment of the caste matter is not so