(482) For the citation referred to, see Pfleiderer, as above, book iv, chap. ii. For the passages referred to as provoking especial wrath, see Colenso, Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite Stone, 1876, p. 217. For the episode regarding the hare chewing the cud, see Cox, Life of Colenso, vol. i, p. 240. The following epigram went the rounds: "The bishops all have sworn to shed their blood To prove 'tis true that the hare doth chew the cud. O bishops, doctors, and divines, beware--Weak is the faith that hangs upon a HAIR!" On Colenso's return to Natal, where many of the clergy and laity who felt grateful for his years of devotion to them received him with signs of affection, an attempt was made to ruin these clergymen by depriving them of their little stipends, and to terrify the simple-minded laity by threatening them with the same "greater excommunication" which had been inflicted upon their bishop. To make the meaning of this more evident, the vicar-general of the Bishop of Cape Town met Colenso at the door of his own cathedral, and solemnly bade him "depart from the house of God as one who has been handed over to the Evil One." The sentence of excommunication was read before the assembled faithful, and they were enjoined to treat their bishop as "a heathen man and a publican." But these and a long series of other persecutions created a reaction in his favour. There remained to Colenso one bulwark which his enemies found stronger than they had imagined--the British courts of justice. The greatest efforts were now made to gain the day before these courts, to humiliate Colenso, and to reduce to beggary the clergy who remained faithful to him; and it is worthy of note that one of the leaders in preparing the legal plea of the com mittee against him was Mr. Gladstone.