Untitled - Electric Scotland

CHAPTER XIV.
THE DIOCESE OF
NATAL THE FIRST LAMBETH CONFERENCE.
THE COLONIAL CHURCH (continued}
1 866-68.
THE controversy now entered upon a new phase, and
Bishop Colenso ceased to be its prominent figure. In
the opinion of Bishop Gray and his supporters, the
heretical Bishop had been duly deposed and excommuni
cated, and the Metropolitan now regarded it as his im
mediate duty to secure the election and consecration of
an orthodox successor for the Diocese of Natal. From
the first he had made no secret of this intention, and
Bishop Tait and Archbishop Longley had for some time
been in correspondence on the subject
The Bishop of London to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
"
2oth April 1866.
" MY DEAR LORD,- ... I much wish something could be
done to induce the Bishop of Capetown to pause before he
proceeds to the consecration of a Bishop to act in Natal. From
what I know of the feelings of a large body of churchmen, I feel
confident that if he takes this step without waiting for the decision
of the Master of the Rolls, and for the Ministerial Colonial
Bishoprics Bill, 1 he will be held guilty of taking the law into his
own hands, and having separated himself from the Church of
England, and the Bishop whom he consecrates will be treated
as a schismatic. This feeling extends amongst a large number
of persons who hold Bishop Colenso s errors in abhorrence, but
1 See below, p. 369.
365