Colenso, JOHN WILLIAM, D.D.

Colenso, JOHN WILLIAM, D.D., Bishop of Natal, the son of a Cornish gentleman, was born at St Austell, January 24, 1814. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated as second wrangler in 1836, and became fellow and assistant-tutor of his college. From 1838 to 1842 he was an assistant-master at Harrow, and for the next four years a tutor at Cambridge. Appointed, in 1846, rector of Fornett St Mary, Norfolk, he published Miscellaneous Examples in Algebra in 1848, Plane Trigonometry in 1851, and Village Sermons in 1853, in which same year he was appointed first Bishop of Natal. With that energy of character which always distinguished him, Dr Colenso at once began a close study of the natives and of the Zulu language, and after a time prepared a grammar and dictionary, and made a translation of the English Prayer-book and a portion of the Bible, printing them in his own house. In 1860 he memorialised the Archbishop of Canterbury against compelling those natives who had already more than one wife to renounce polygamy as a condition to baptism, alleging that he could find no warrant for such compulsion either in the gospel or in the ancient church. In 1861 he published his Translation of St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, commented on from a Missionary Point of View, in which he objected to the doctrine of eternal punishment. He next announced that he had become convinced of the improbability of many statements of facts and numbers in the historical books of the Bible; and in 1862 there appeared the first part of his work on The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined. This treatise brought down upon its writer an avalanche of criticism and remonstrance. He had called in question the historical accuracy and Mosaic authorship of the books cited, and his work was condemned as heretical by small majorities in both Houses of Convocation of the province of Canterbury. The bishop was entreated to resign his see by his episcopal brethren, some of whom inhibited him from preaching in their dioceses. The second part of his work appeared in 1863. Convocation censured him in the succeeding year, and he was declared to be deposed from his see by his Metropolitan, Bishop Gray of Capetown. He appealed from this judgment in 1865, when the Privy-council declared the deposition to be 'null and void in law.' The bishops constituting the council of the Colonial Bishops Fund, however, refused to pay him his income, upon which he appealed to the Court of Chancery. On October 6, 1866, the Master of the Rolls delivered an elaborate judgment, ordering the payment of the bishop's income, with all arrears and interest, unless his accusers should bring him to trial for heresy; but this they declined to do. Immediately before Dr Colenso's return to his diocese in August 1865, his English friends presented him with £3300 as a testimonial. The Anglican community at the Cape was now divided into two camps, and although Dr Colenso remained the only bishop of the Church of England in Natal, Bishop Gray publicly excommunicated him, and in 1869 consecrated Dr W. K. Macrorie as Bishop of Maritzburg, his authority practically extending over the same diocese. In 1874 Dr Colenso visited England to report upon the affairs of his diocese to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to consult with the heads of the church upon its relations to the new see of Maritzburg. While in England he pleaded the cause of Langelibalele, a dispossessed Zulu chief. On his return to South Africa he warmly espoused the interests of the natives against the oppression of the Boers, and the encroaching policy of the Cape officials. He opposed the attitude of Sir Bartle Frere and the home government during the Zulu war, and earnestly strove to make peace between the contending parties. Owing to his exertions, Cetywayo was allowed to visit England and plead for his rights. Dr Colenso's defence of the aboriginal claims lost him much valuable support; but the bishop and his daughter never swerved from what seemed to them to be the wisest as well as the only honourable course to pursue towards the natives of South Africa. In addition to the works already named, Dr Colenso was the author of Ten Weeks in Natal (1855); The New Bible Commentary Literally Examined (1871-74); Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite Stone (1873); and a volume of Sermons (1873). His critical analysis of the Pentateuch extended to seven parts, the last of which appeared in 1879. This work was not without influence in modifying the views of Kuenen and other continental commentators. Bishop Colenso died at Durban, Natal, June 20, 1883. He was a man of upright and inflexible character, yet gentle in demeanour and chivalrous in controversy. His theological works still find many readers, while his treatises on algebra and arithmetic have long been text-books in the public schools and universities. See his Life by Sir G. W. Cox (2 vols. 1888).