NONCONFORMIST JOTTINGS' BY NONOON. QUILL. General Booth, of the Salvation Army notoriety has again replied to my strictures. Tiie ;ndu; menttll brought against him and the Ar;nv he Let, go UDchallengsd; no I conclude that they were 41 substantially true The only statement lie cn»j. ■enges and contradicts is m' de!<Criptim of t'1e present condition of the Salvatiun Army in the Rhondda Valley. I stated that of three st.&tic,tlI two were broken up; and that the atteyitia" the centra) one at Pentre was diminishing. I did not make the statement without due inquiry, and I am sorry to add that the facta are as I statu thern, and notas General Booth rashly asserts. T!II General never make. any statement of d'c!ial3:; it would bo as well if he refrained a'.ao irom Baking any statement of facts. I do not mean for a moment that lie wilfully misleads or luisreprt- sents but men of his culture and stamp alwavs substitute -in guessing for accurate thinkin¡¡ The letter of the venerable Bishop of Ll4nù. un the power vssted in the clergy to shorten the services of tho Church Wa.< a new revelation to me, and probably to many others. And now I fo not quite understand how far the clergy tu •hort»n, mi, the Sunday morning ?rvice. I kDVW f0r certain th"t W .y the ..t-rdiu.,y 1,?.& of the sorvice is a stumbling block. Being accus- tomed from infancy to the Nonconformist method of worship, I must confess that I begin to get tired of the Church service after the timt lialf-hour; and the next quarter of an hour appears to me inter- minably lonj. My experience is not solitary; and if the service be shortened and thc ¡;e)1IJoD lengthened, the Church will appear more attractive to the Welshman with his mercurial temperament than it does at presont. The service is already re- markable for its stately dignity, and if to dignitv be added reasonable brevity and moderate amount of instruction, the change will doubtless be beneficial. The letter of the Bishop shows thst the Church of England is now sufficiently elastic to meet the changing Nrants of tiie agn. What i, wanted now is strong powerful men within tb Church itself-inen of the stamp of Wesley and Rowlands—to take advantage of the elasticity Qf Church law and Church service, and make then all instinct with life. Come from the foui- winds, o breath, and breathe upon the slain," and the dry bonee will live, and stand on their feet, an ex- ceedmg great army." The question of the Disestablishment of the Scottish Church is likoly to be broached in Parlis- ment in the coming session. Stormy meetinesare being held in Scotland under the leadership of Principal Rainy and Mi. Dick Peddie, fP To make this question plain, just let me mention two or three facts. Before the year 1843 Scotland had one Presbyterian Church, and that Church- established. You will. therefore, see that Presby- terianim and Episcopal)anisin as such liave nothing to do with the principle of a State Churcii. In Scotland we see Presbrianiem established; in England we see Episcopalianism established. In the early part of this contury, however, e«u> lished Presbyterianism had sunk to the satut spiritual torpor as established Episcopalianism it our own country. Earnest men arose—Chalmers, Cunningham, Candlish, and others, and wished to inaugurate a revival. How > By denying tbt Scripturalness of Establishment* ? Certainly not, but by denvir.g the Scripturabess of patronage. They saw that traffic was lbeing made in livings, and that wealth; Ilaymln, many of them IIngodly, thru. minisrs upon the Chuchee, ministers that wcrt not qualified, either by learning or pietv, to edifr the flock of God. Under such circumstances, the good and able men to whom I have alluded felt that it was impossible to revive spiritual reiigioa, hence the Free Church movement. It was a pM teat, not againbt tho principle of Esublishai«nu, but against the principle of lay patronage. 1W. waa the view hekl by the founders of the Free Church, and bvld to-day by Dr. Begg and his fol- lowers, who are by no means inconsideiable. Dr BegJ, though a Free Church minister, is one of the ablest champions of Establishments either north ot south of the 1 weed. After that arose the denomi- nation known as t'nited Presbvterianism, wbici repudiates, not only the principle of patronigt but also that of Establishments. Here, then, are three great branches of Scottish Presbyterianism the Established Church going in fur estabti.!btD&L16 plus patronage; tiie Free Church going in (or Establishments minus patronage; and United Presbyterianism repudiating both the one "lid tlx other. But within the last few years a change bioi come over the first two sections. The L. :ablishfci Church still believes, of course, in Establishment*, but has abolished patrenage—she is now just what Chalmers, Cumiiugham, and Candlish wanted bsr to be In 18i3. But the Free Church is sol quite where it was then; the majority repudiate the principles of a State Church, Principal Rainy! proposition being carried the other day in tie Presbytery by 40 votes against fifteen The Established Church has come over to the positios of the Free Church when first founded but the Free Church has shifted ite ground, andisabou: practically to adopt the principles of l'ni Presbyterianism. Without pronouncing an opinion one way or theother, I may be permitted to say that it is refreshing, were it only for the sake of change, to find Dr Vance Smith, the accomplished prin- cipal of Carmarthen College, than whom the [ni. tarians cannot show a more learned or a mllf respected man, writing with so much candour aDd ability, in the last number of Trtah, in favour of Establishments. He believes in comprehensive ness, and that, instead of the State excising tiie Church of England, it ought to establish Noncon- formity, giviug, however, to each sect perfec: liberty in matters of ritual and doctrine But the genius of the age is againgt levelling up, notwith- standing tiie eloquent ad vocacy of cuch men as Dr. Vance Smith on the one hand, and Dr. Begg on the otiier. We must, therefore, be prepared for » determined attempt to level down. The discoveries recently made at Bagdad fill me with a strange joy. Mr. Rassatn, the illustrious Assyrian explorer, came last year upon the ruins, all it ie supposed, of the ancient city of Bagdsd He discovered, after only four day., digging. enormous building, full of all kinds of inscrip tions. One of the rooms was paved with asphtlti. which was vaunted as a recent invention, tta proving the saying of Solomon, that "there. nothing new under the sun." The city of Bagdad is considered the oldest in he world, founded according to tradition, by oah. soon sftes tin Deluge; and according to the sane tradition 14" Noah buried the records of the world before tin Flood. Mr. Rassam is not without hopes tbI he has discovered, or will discover, these atl»- diluvian writings. In one nom alone he d ten thousand tablets, which are now on their "Y to the British Museum. I for one will eagerly look forward to their deciphering, hoping against b-Vo that tbey may contain fragments of sntediluviw literature. We certainly live in an inquiring •C. ■ Those who tt%ad in the steps of Tischendorn M" Tregelles are not quite without hope that ibf? may one dav, in the i?x?vations g(AD9 @n '? tbo :h; i,;ba:;in:D gfetf: in LM handwriting of St. Paul or of hi8 amanuen81S

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