The famous case of Bishop Colenso, which synchronized with the Oxford heresy-hunt of Jowett and other contributors to _Essays and Reviews_, is dealt with very much in the same spirit. By way of introducing the subject to a generation who do not know Colenso as an arithmetician and take for granted the method of applying scientific criticism to scripture history, which he was the first English Bishop to adopt, it may be as well to state that while Bishop of Natal he had incurred the displeasure of his metropolitan, Dr. Gray, the Bishop of Cape Town, by the publication of his critical studies of the Pentateuch. Dr. Gray claimed the right to try and depose Colenso for heresy, and did so. Colenso protested against Gray's jurisdiction and appealed to the Crown, with the result that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council pronounced the whole of the proceedings null and void. The episode created a stir by the side of which the Kikuyu controversy is reduced to insignificance. Colenso's searching historical criticisms did not merely alarm orthodox theologians; they estranged his friend, the broad-minded F. D. Maurice. _Punch_ was with Colenso in his refusal to acquiesce in Dr. Gray's claim to override the secular courts; he respected Colenso's fearless courage and honesty; but for the rest he declined to enter into the theological issues involved and hovered on the outskirts of the dispute:-- COLENSO AND CONVOCATION Truth is great; must prevail; Reason, Parsons, don't rail; You will hinder, not help, her defence so. But confute the man's sums; You may then snap your thumbs And make faces at Bishop Colenso. Much neater and better, however, is the summary of the correspondence between the Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury given three weeks later:-- THE NATAL CORRESPONDENCE I My dear Colenso, With regret, We hierarchs, in conclave met, Beg you, you most disturbing writer, To take off your colonial mitre. This course we press upon you strongly: Believe me, Yours most truly, LONGLEY. Lambeth. II My dear Archbishop, To resign That Zulu diocese of mine, And own myself a heathen dark Because I've doubts of Noah's Ark, And feel it right to tell all men so, Is _not_ the course for Yours, COLENSO. Kensington. [Sidenote: _Dean Stanley and Père Hyacinthe_] Stanley was appointed to the Deanery of Westminster in 1863, and the lamentations of the _Record_, the organ of ultra-orthodox Evangelicalism, gave _Punch_ his opportunity:--