Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1866-02-17 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

NEW ZEALAND.  The Otago Times of Dec 18 contains the following summary :—Notwithstanding the invariable success of the Colonial troops in the Opotiki district in their encounters with the Maories, there is a strong body of natives who have fallen hack upon what has proved to be an impregnable position in their interior, commanding the tracks to the east coast. No way of reaching the enemy has yet been discovered, and for the present they remain unmolested in their stronghold. A cordon has been drawn by the Government, excluding the inhabitants of the district in a state of war from commercial intercourse with the colonists ; and it is thought probable that the measure will have a beneficial effect. A number of natives have been convicted by courtmartial of participating in the murders of the Rev. Mr Volkner and Mr Fulloon ; but instructions regarding their sentences are not yet issued. In the Wanganui district the natives are still  turbulent, and they have lately committed two ambushed murders. The General, it is said, has determined to make an example of the offenders, and troops are likely to be employed for the purpose. Neither lengthy nor expensive operations are, however, contemplated. The gold-fields are yielding well  No 11. Sni,—ln my former letter I showed, by a miles of testimonies taken from Churchmen themselves, how utterly the Church of England had failed in her duty as the moral and spilitual instructor of the Welsh nation. But do say that she failed in her duty is to state only half the bath. She has habitually and strenuously resisted the efforts made by others to supply her own lack of service, The ecclesiastical authorities ever were in the Principality the most active obstructors and persecutors, first of the Puritans, then of the Nonconformists, and finally of the Methodists, in their attempts to improve the morals of the people. This is susceptible of proof by a chain of historical evidence coming down from the eeriest times to the present. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when, according to the preamble of an Act of Parliement authorising the translation of the Bible into the Welsh language, which, however, was not done till thirty years after, " her Majesty's most loving and obedient subjects, inhabiting within her Highness's dominion and country of Wales, being no small part of this realm, are utterly destitute of God's Holy Word, and do remain in the like or rather more darkness and ignorance than they were in the time of Papistry," there arose as an advocate for the Welsh people a very remarkable man in the person of John Penry, a native of Breconehire. He was a young clergyman who had been educated at Oxford, and is described as having been a famous preacher in the University. Ile was amen of cabin e and learning, as well as of a most earnest and heroic sprit. By his writings, and by petitions to the Queen and Parliament, be strove hard to call the attention of the Government and bishops of that day to the lamentable condition of the Principality. Nothing can be more powerful and patheic than his appeals on behalf of his "dear and native country." And what was the result? The result was that he was persecuted and imprisoned for his pains ; and eventually, after a trial which, as Sir Thomas Phillips truly says, "disgraces the name of English justice," was hung like a felon on the prosecution of Archbishop Whit gift. When, in the reign of Charles 1., some leaven of the Puritan element, so powerful in England, began to spread among the clergy in Wales, prompting them to certain "irregular" efforts for the instruction of the utterly benighted and neglected people, the bishops of the several Welsh dioceses' at the instigation of Archbishop Laud, set themselves by a ruthless system of persecution to root out all such ref) eatery spirits. There is still extant among the Lambeth