Edwin had chosen the subject of Bishop Colenso--the ultimate wording of
the resolution was not his--because he had been reading about the
intellectually adventurous Bishop in the "Manchester Examiner." And,
although eleven years had passed since the publication of the first part
of "The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined," the
Colenso question was only just filtering down to the thinking classes of
the Five Towns; it was an actuality in the Five Towns, if in abeyance in
London. Even Hugh Miller's "The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an
Old Field," then over thirty years old, was still being looked upon as
dangerously original in the Five Towns in 1873. However, the effect of
its disturbing geological evidence that the earth could scarcely have
been begun and finished in a little under a week, was happily nullified
by the suicide of its author; that pistol-shot had been a striking proof
of the literal inspiration of the Bible.
Bishop Colenso had, in Edwin, an ingenuous admirer. Edwin stammeringly
and hesitatingly gave a preliminary sketch of his life; how he had been
censured by Convocation and deposed from his See by his Metropolitan;
how the Privy Council had decided that the deposition was null and void;
how the ecclesiastical authorities had then circumvented the Privy
Council by refusing to pay his salary to the Bishop (which Edwin
considered mean); how the Bishop had circumvented the ecclesiastical
authorities by appealing to the Master of the Rolls, who ordered the
ecclesiastical authorities to pay him his arrears of income with
interest thereon, unless they were ready to bring him to trial for
heresy; how the said authorities would not bring him to trial for heresy
(which Edwin considered to be miserable cowardice on their part); how
the Bishop had then been publicly excommunicated, without authority; and
how his friends, among whom were some very respectable and powerful
people, had made him a present of over three thousand pounds. After
this graphic historical survey, Edwin proceeded to the Pentateuchal
puzzles, and, without pronouncing an opinion thereon, argued that any
commentator who was both learned and sincere must be a force for good,
as the Bible had nothing to fear from honest inquiry, etcetera,
etcetera. Five-sixths of his speech was coloured by phrases and modes
of thought which he had picked up in the Wesleyan community, and the
other sixth belonged to himself. The speech was moderately bad, but not
inferior to many other speeches. It was received in absolute silence.
This rather surprised Edwin, because the tone in which the leading
members of the Society usually spoke to him indicated that (for reasons
which he knew not) they regarded him as a very superior intellect
indeed; and Edwin was not entirely ashamed of the quality of his speech;
in fact, he had feared worse from himself, especially as, since his walk
with Mr Orgreave, he had been quite unable to concentrate his thoughts
on Bishop Colenso at all, and had been exceedingly unhappy and
apprehensive concerning an affair that bore no kind of relation to the
Pentateuch.
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