his purposes, and his charming facility
in being all things to all men, as well as his skill in evading the
consequences of his many mistakes, gained him the sobriquet of "Soapy
Sam." If such brethren of his in the episcopate as Thirlwall and Selwyn
and Tait might claim to be in the apostolic succession, Wilberforce
was no less surely in the succession from the most gifted and eminently
respectable Sadducees who held high preferment under Pontius Pilate.

By a curious coincidence he had only a few years before preached the
sermon when Colenso was consecrated in Westminster Abbey, and one
passage in it may be cited as showing the preacher's gift of prophecy
both hortatory and predictive. Wilberforce then said to Colenso:
"You need boldness to risk all for God--to stand by the truth and its
supporters against men's threatenings and the devil's wrath;... you need
a patient meekness to bear the galling calumnies and false surmises
with which, if you are faithful, that same Satanic working, which, if it
could, would burn your body, will assuredly assail you daily through the
pens and tongues of deceivers and deceived, who, under a semblance of
a zeal for Christ, will evermore distort your words, misrepresent your
motives, rejoice in your failings, exaggerate your errors, and seek
by every poisoned breath of slander to destroy your powers of
service."(485)

(485) For the social ostracism of Colenso, see works already cited; also
Cox's Life of Colenso. For the passage from Wilberforce's sermon at the
consecration of Colenso, see Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, The Church of England
and the Teaching of Bishop Colenso. For Wilberforce's relations to the
Colenso case in general, see his Life, by his son, vol. iii, especially
pp. 113-126, 229-231. For Keble's avowal that no Englishman believes
in excommunication, ibid., p. 128. For a guarded statement of Dean
Stanley's opinion regarding Wilberforce and Newman, see a letter from
Dean Church to the Warden of Keble, in Life and Letters of Dean Church,
p. 293.

Unfortunately, when Colenso followed this advice his adviser became
the most untiring of his persecutors. While leaving to men like the
Metropolitan of Cape Town and Archdeacon Denison the noisy part of the
onslaught, Wilberforce was among those who were most zealous in devising
more effective measures.

But time, and even short time, has redressed the balance between the two
prelates. Colenso is seen more and more of all men