The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-29 00:00:00

The Excommunication of Bishop Colenso.

In consequence of the deposition of Dr. Colenso
from his office of Bishop of Natal by Dr. Gray, the
Metropolitan of South Africa, a new bishop has been
designated and will shortly be consecrated ; but his
name has not yet publicly transpired. Meanwhile
Dr. Colenso intimates his intention to maintain his
legal rights as a colonial bishop, and to enforce his
demands against the Colonial Bishoprics Fund, from
which his salary is paid. In the suit which will be
heard in the next term, Dr. Colenso, who is the
plaintiff, sets out that when the see of Natal was
founded, the Council of the Colonial Bishoprics
Fund agreed with her Majesty's Government to
appropriate for ever out of the proceeds of the fund
to the use of the Bishop of Natal the sum of £662
per annum. He states that the annual income was
duly paid to him after his consecration by the trea-
surers down to and including the half-yearly pay-
ment due on April 5, 1864, but has not since been
paid ; and in the month of July, 1864, he received
a letter from the treasurers, in which it was stated
that they had directed the salary hitherto allowed
for the bishopric of Natal to be reserved and carried
to a separate account. Bishop Colenso will now
pray that the sum guaranteed may be paid to him,
and that the costs may be paid by the defendants,
viz., Mr. Gladstone (Chancellor of the Exchequer),
Vice-Chancellor Sir W. Page Wood, _ the Arch-
deacon of London, and Mr. J. G. Hubbard, m.r:
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the
Attorney-General are also nominal defendants.
In their answer to the bill which Bishop Colenso
has filed, the defendants set out the circumstances
under which the fund was formed. In June, 1853,
the council of the fund appropriated a capital sum
of £lO,OOO for the establishment of the bishopric
of Natal, and Dr. Colenso was nominated
bishop by the Duke of Newcastle, who was then
Colonial Secretary. The defendants urge that they
had nothing to do with the appointment of Bishop
Colenso. Having adverted to the letters patent
and the recent judgment of the Judicial Committee
of Privy Council, the defendants say in their answer
—" We are advised that, in accordance with the
said judgment, the letters patent are null and void
so far as they purport to create any diocese, or to
confer any legal jurisdiction or authority on the
plaintiff, and that the plaintiff has no power to exer-
cise the function of a bishop in the colony of Natal ;
or, at all events, has no jurisdiction as a bishop in
the colony, and is not himself subject to the juris-
diction of the Bishop of Cape Town as his metro-
politan, or to any other spiritual or ecclesiastical
jurisdiction whatever ; and we submit that if such is
the case the objects for which the funds were sub-
scribed and invested have not been obtained, which
objects were, in the first place, to secure the pastoral
care of a bishop for the clergy and people of the
diocese of Natal, and in the second place to bring
such bishop under the jurisdiction of the metropo-
litan, himself being subject to the Archbishop of
Canterbury ; and we declare our belief that none of
the contributors to the Colonial Bishoprics Fund
intended to contribute towards the support of a
bishop, such as the judgment of the Judicial Com-
mittee of her Majesty's Privy Council has decided
the plaintiff to be. That is, a bishop without any
jurisdiction over his clergy on the one hand, and
entirely independent of all metropolitan jurisdic-
tion on the other." The defendants further allege
" that the clergy of the diocese of Natal have refused
obedience to Bishop Colenso—that one of the fun-
damental principles of all arrangements for the erec-
tion and endowment of colonial bishoprics was the
maintenance and preservation of strict connection
and discipline between such bishops and the United
Church of England and Ireland, that all the arch-
bishops and bishops of such Church are trustees for
the endowment of the see of Natal, and as such are
authorised to withhold the income from the plain-
tiff." The case will be heard by Lord Romilly.

THE EXTRAORDINARY GULLOTINE SUICIDE.-
-This morning Mr. Payne, the coroner for the
City of London, opened an inquest at the Sugar Loaf,
Bouverie-street, Fleet-street, into the circumstances at-
tending the death of M. Vellers or Vollara, who destroyed
himself a few days ago by means of a self-acting gullotine.
The jury, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict
that the deceased committed the act while in a sound state
of mind.