COLENSO, JOHN WILLIAM, an English clergyman, born at St. Austell, Cornwall, January 24, 1814; died at Port Natal, South Africa, June 20, 1883. He entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1836 with high honors, and became a fellow of his college. Two years afterward he was appointed Assistant Master of Harrow School, a position which he held until 1842. During this time he prepared a series of works on arithmetic and algebra, which were widely adopted as text-books. After that he became Rector of Forncett, Norfolk. In 1853 he was made Bishop of the newly erected See of Natal, in South Africa.

In 1861 appeared the first of his works which indicated a departure from the views held by the Anglican Church. This was a Translation of the Epistle to the Romans, commented on from a Missionary Point of View. Next year appeared a work which had apparently been long meditated, in which his wide departure from the views generally accepted as "orthodox" was clearly marked. This was the first part of his treatise on The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, Critically Examined. This work, impugning the authenticity of the books in question, was formally brought before the highest English ecclesiastical courts, by whom it was condemned as "containing er

rors of the gravest and most dangerous character." Thereafter ensued an ecclesiastical warfare, the reading of which is more exciting than profitable. Colenso was formally deposed by his metropolitan, the Bishop of Cape Town. He appealed from this decision; his appeal was sus tained by the Privy Council, in 1865, and he was secured in the revenues attached to his See. But the Church in South Africa still maintained that Colenso was legally deposed, and would have nothing to do with him in his Episcopal capacity.

The later years of Colenso's life (1865-1883) were passed in quiet at Port Natal, where he was noted for the kindly interest which he manifested toward the natives-Boers and Zulus. He put forth from time to time several new works, among which are a volume of Natal Sermons; a Zulu Grammar; a Zulu Dictionary; a Zulu Translation of the New Testament; the sixth and concluding part of The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, Critically Examined (1872); and Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite Stone (1873).

THE DELUGE.

While translating the story of the Flood, I have had a simple-minded, but intelligent native-one with the docility of a child, but the reasoning powers of mature age-look up and ask, "Is it all true? Do you really believe that all this happened thus-that all the beasts, and birds, and creeping things upon the earth, large and small, from hot countries and cold, came thus by pairs, and entered into the ark with Noah? And did Noah gather food for them all, for the beasts and birds of prey, as well as the rest?" My heart answered in the words of the Prophet, "Shall a man speak lies in the

name of the Lord?"-Zech. xiii. 3. I dared not do so. My own knowledge of some branches of science, of Geology in particular, had been much increased since I left England; and I now knew for certain, on geological grounds, a fact, of which I had only had misgivings before, viz., that a Universal Deluge, such as the Bible manifestly speaks of, could not possibly have taken place in the way described in the Book of Genesis, not to mention other difficulties which the story contains. I refer especially to the circumstance, well known to all geologists (see LYELL'S Elementary Geology, pp. 197, 198), that volcanic hills exist of immense extent in Auvergne and Languedoc, which must have been formed ages before the Noachian Deluge, and which are covered with light and loose substances, pumice-stone, etc., that must have been swept away by a flood, but do not exhibit the slightest sign of having ever been so disturbed. Of course, I am well aware that some have attempted to show that Noah's Deluge was only a partial one. But such attempts have ever seemed to be made in the very teeth of the Scripture statements, which are as plain and explicit as words can possibly be. Nor is anything really gained by supposing the Deluge to have been partial. For, as waters must find their own level on the Earth's surface, without a special miracle, of which the Bible says nothing, a Flood, which should begin by covering the top of Ararat (if that were conceivable), or a much lower mountain, must necessarily become universal, and in due time sweep over the hills of Auvergne. Knowing this, I felt that I dared not, as a servant of the God of Truth, urge my brother man to believe that which I did not myself believe, which I knew to be untrue as a matter-of-fact historical narrative.-From The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua.

COLERIDGE, HARTLEY, English poet, son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born at Clevedon, Somersetshire, September 19, 1796; died at Rydal, Westmoreland, January 6, 1849. He was a child of uncommon promise; but owing to the unfortunate habits of his father at the time when his children were growing up, he, like the other children of Coleridge, was left to the care of Southey, whose wife was a sister of their mother. In 1815 Hartley Coleridge was entered as a student of Merton College, Oxford; and three years afterward he gained a fellowship in Oriel College. But he had in the meanwhile contracted the habit of intemperance, which he was never afterward able to conquer. Before his probationary year for the fellowship had expired he forfeited the position. The authorities would not rescind their decision of forfeiture, but made him a present of £300, with which he went to London, hoping to enter upon a literary career, in which he had every essential to success. But his habits of intemperance still clung to him. He afterward went to Ambleside and opened a school there which proved unsuccessful. In this region he passed the remainder of his life, pitied for his besetting weakness, which he vainly strove to overcome; but loved for his amiable character. Hartley Coleridge wrote much prose and more verse