30 SEPTEMBER 1882, Page 14

NO PEERS DISSENTERS. [TO THE EDITOR OF THU " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In

reference to a remark to the above effect in the article on "Mental Impenetrability," in the Spectator of September 23rd, may I be permitted to say that an Earl, but lately de- ceased, was, I believe, an older in the Free Church of Scotland P An English Peer was, a very few years hack, a member of a Congregational Church, occasionally a preacher, too. Another well-known evangelist in London—nu Irish Peer, if I mistake not—is believed to be in communion with the more liberal order of "Brethren." I mention only instances that have come under my own notice. Doubtless, others of your readers will be able to supply other exceptions to the rule, for such it must be ad- mitted to be, that in Nonconformity the nobles are conspicuous by their absence. Dissent has, in this respect, succeeded to what was once the observed note of Christianity itself (I. Cor., i., 26).

Was the " Congregationalist " Peer an avowed member of any Church ? A Presbyterian is not a Nonconformist, in the sense in which we use the word,—that is, one who objects on religious grounds to a State Church ; and a Plymouth Brother is only a religious eccentric.—En. Spectator.]