the Thirty-Nine
Articles on the inspiration of Holy Scripture, on the atonement, and on
justification. They were therefore suspended for one year, with the
further penalty of costs and deprivation of their salary. At the urgent
solicitation of friends, in addition to their own strong desire to push
their defense as far as possible, their case was brought before the
Privy Council, a court of which the Queen is a member, and from which
there can be no appeal. Contrary to the general expectation, the
decision of the Court of Arches was reversed, and the essayists in
question were restored to their functions. The reversal of the decision
of the Court of Arches is couched in the following significant language:
"On the general tendency of the book called 'Essays and Reviews,' and on
the effort or aim of the whole essay of Dr. Williams, or the whole essay
of Mr. Wilson, we neither can, nor do, pronounce any opinion. On the
short extracts before us, our Judgment is that the charges are not
proved. Their Lordships, therefore, will humbly recommend to Her Majesty
that the sentences be reversed, and the reformed articles be rejected in
like manner as the rest of the original articles; but inasmuch as the
Appellants have been obliged to come to this Court, their Lordships
think it right that they should have the costs of this Appeal."[191]
This action was regarded by every skeptical sympathizer as a great
triumph, and we may therefore expect the Rationalistic school to engage
in still more important enterprises than any to which they have
addressed themselves.

The most outspoken and violent attacks of critical Rationalism in
England are contained in the exegetical publications of Dr. John William
Colenso, who, in 1853, was consecrated Bishop of Natal, South Eastern
Africa. He had previously issued a series of mathematical works which
obtained a wide circulation; but his first book of scriptural criticism
was the _Epistle to the Romans, newly translated and explained from a
Missionary Point of View_. Having completed the New Testament and
several parts of the Old, he was laboring assiduously on a translation
of the Bible into the Zulu tongue, when his former doubts concerning the
unhistorical character of the Pentateuch revived with increased force.
The intelligent native who was assisting him in his literary work asked,
respecting the account of the flood, "Is all that true?" This, with
other inquiries propounded to him by the Zu