NATAL, JOHN' irVIDLIANI COLENSO, D.D. Bishop of, a divine of the church of Eng land; was b. in 1814, and educated at St. John's college,Cambridge, where he graduated as second wrangler and Smith's prizeman in 1836. From 1838 to 1842 he was one of the masters of Harrow school, and for the next four years tutor of St. John's college. In 1846 lie was appointed rector of Forncett St. Mary, in the co. of Not-folk, and in It.-,54 first bishop of Natal, South Africa. The works by which he was, until recently, most widely known were his two treatises on algebra and arithmetic. The treatise on alga bra was first published in 1849, and that on arithmetic in 1853. They soon acquired great popularity, and have been adopted as text-books in many of the principal schools and colleges in Great Britain. He has also published other educational works. He first attracted public notice, however, by the dedication of a volume of sermons to the rev. Mr. Maurice (q.v.), at the moment when that gentleman was in disgrace with the "orthodox" section of the religious world. His affection and respect for Ir. Maurice were further shown by his edition of the Communion Service, 'with Selections from Wriii ogs of the Rev. E D. Maurice (1855). In the same year appeared his Ten Weeks in Xatal; in 1861 his Translation of the Epistle to the Romans, commented on from a Missionary Point of View; and A Letter to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, upon the Question ef the Proper Treatment of Cases of Polygamy, as found already existing in from Heathenism, in which he recommends, on grounds both of reason and Scripture, that converts to Christianity, already possessing several wives. should not be forced to put
them all away, except one. He admits that monogamy is most in harmony with the genius of Christianity, but would enforce it only in the case of those who married after their conversion. The outcry raised by his professional brethren against the Letter was sufficiently loud, but it was nothing to the tempest of disapprobation that burst forth in the following year (1862), when he published The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Uriti in which he endeavored to prove that, as they stand, these books are not the products either of the age to which they arc usually assigned, or of the authors whose names they bear; and that they are snot entirely historical, but in many most important passages are overlaid with legendary, mythical, and symbolical incidents. Part VII. of this work was published in 1879. The bishop of Cape Town, the metro politan bishop, declared Coleus() deposed from his see; but on an appeal to the privy council in 1863, the deposition was pronounced null and void. In 1874 Colenso visited England to plead h-he cause of Langalibalcle (see NATAL). Other works by the bishop are .Neal Sermons (1866) and Lectures on the Pentateuch and time Moabite Stone (2d ed., 1873).