554 



CREDIT 



CREEDS 



Three companies were established by the French 

 government in Paris, Marseilles, and Nevers. 

 They were all formed in 1852, and on 10th 

 December of the same year were amalgamated as 

 the Credit Fonder de France, with the privilege of 

 making such advances. The Credit Foncier stands 

 relatively to real estate as the Credit Mobilier 

 to personal property. The companies formed in 

 Britain to advance money for improvements on 

 landed properties are of a similar character. The 

 Credit Foncier ( Limited ), formed in London in 1864, 

 "was a general finance company. It speculated 

 largely in the promotion of public works at home 

 and abroad, met with heavy losses, and was several 

 times reorganised. 



Credit, LETTER OF. This is the term applied 

 to a letter , addressed to a correspondent at a 

 distance, requesting him to pay a sum therein 

 specified to the person named, or to hold the money 

 at his disposal, and authorising the correspondent 

 to reimburse himself for such payment, either by 

 debiting it in account between the parties, or by 

 drawing on the first party for the amount. This 

 arrangement may take place between merchants 

 or others, but in general it occurs between 

 bankers residing in different places e.g. between 

 a banker in London and his correspondent in 

 New York ; and it is designed to enable any one 

 who has money lodged at one place to obtain 

 the use of it at another for a small charge, or 

 commission, without the risk or trouble of actu- 

 ally carrying money between the two cities. 

 It is thus a sort of primitive or informal Bill 

 of Exchange (q.v.), though not, like a bill, a 

 negotiable instrument. Sometimes the letter is 

 addressed to all or several of the correspond- 

 ents of the bank issuing it, in which case it is 

 termed a Circular Credit; and any of them may 

 pay the sum mentioned, or sums to account as 

 desired, taking the holder's receipt, or his draft on 

 the granter, in exchange ; and the sums so paid 

 are indorsed on the letter, to show how far the 

 credit has been used. Even where the granter 

 has no correspondent, the holder of an authentic 

 letter will usually have little difficulty in obtaining 

 money upon it ; and the system is thus productive 

 of much convenience to all who have occasion to 

 travel. 



Some bankers, having an extensive correspond- 

 ence abroad, issue what are called Circular Notes, 

 usually of the value of 10 or 20 each, which any 

 of the granter's correspondents, or indeed any one 

 else, may cash to the holder, on his indorsation and 

 production of a letter of indication. In this kind 

 of credit, the notes are bought outright ; whereas 

 for the ordinary letter of credit, the banker debits 

 the drafts under it only when they are advised to 

 him. The introduction (about 1770) of these notes, 

 which have proved of great convenience to travellers, 

 though of little direct profit to the banks, is due to 

 Mr Merries, the founder of the eminent banking- 

 house of Herries, Farquhar, & Co., London. 



A marginal credit is one in which the due pay- 

 ment of the bills or drafts under it are guaranteed 

 by a third party interested in the transaction ; the 

 guarantee oeing usually expressed in a marginal 

 note on the bill. See CIRCULAR NOTES. 



Credit Mobilier. See MOBILIER. 



Crediton, or KIRKTON, a borough in the 

 middle of Devonshire, on the Greedy, a tributary 

 of the Exe, 7 miles NW. of Exeter. It lies in a 

 narrow vale between two steep hills, and, having 

 suffered much by fire in 1743 and 1769, is mostly 

 modern. Its church, however, is a fine old cruci- 

 form structure. The birthplace of St Boniface 

 (q.v.), the apostle of Germany, Crediton was the 

 seat of a bishopric from 910 to 1050, when it was 



transferred to Exeter, and from 1897 has a bishop 

 suffragan under Exeter. Its woollen manufactures 

 belong to the past. Pop. ( 1851 ) 3924 ; ( 1891 ) 4207. 



Creditor. See DEBTOR, BANKRUPTCY. 



Creech, WILLIAM, Edinburgh bookseller, born 

 21st April 1745, learned his trade in Edinburgh and 

 London, and spent some time on the Continent 

 before beginning business in 1771. For more than 

 forty years he issued the chief literary productions 

 of that period in Edinburgh, including the first 

 Edinburgli edition of Burns, and the works of Blair, 

 Beattie, and Dugald Stewart, and Mackenzie's 

 Mirror and Lounger. He was Lord Provost ( 1811- 

 13), and died 14th January 1815. His newspaper 

 letters and odd writings collected in Edinburgh 

 Fugitive Pieces ( 1791 ; new ed. with memoir, 1815), 

 contain much curious information about old Edin- 

 burgh, and the way of life of a past generation. 



Creedinoor, a village of Long Island, 12 miles 

 E. of New York by rail, with an extensive rifle- 

 range. 



Creeds, the authorised expressions of the 

 doctrine of the church at large, or of the several 

 main sections into which it is divided. Such 

 statements of doctrine sprang up naturally in the 

 course of the church's progress. As the doctrines 

 taught by Christ became the subjects of thought, 

 of argument, of controversy, they could not fail to 

 receive a more defined intellectual expression, and 

 to be drawn out into more precise dogmatic state- 

 ments ; and the great creeds, as they rise in suc- 

 cession, and mark the climax of successive con- 

 troversial epochs in the church, are nothing else 

 than the varying expressions of the Christian con- 

 sciousness and reason, in their efforts more com- 

 pletely to realise, comprehend, and express the 

 originally simple elements of truth as they are 

 recorded in Scripture. Accordingly, the creeds of 

 Christendom grow in complexity, in elaborate 

 analysis and inventiveness of doctrinal statement, 

 as they succeed one another. 



What has been called the Apostles' Creed is 

 probably the earliest form of Christian creed that 

 exists, unless we give the precedence to the bap- 

 tismal formula at the close of St Matthew's Gospel, 

 out of which many suppose the Apostles' Creed to 

 have grown. There were in the early church differ- 

 ing forms of this primitive creed : that which is 

 received and repeated in the service of the Church 

 of England has come to us through the Latin 

 Church ; and some of its clauses, as, for instance, 

 'He descended into hell,' and again, 'The com- 

 munion of saiiits,' are at any rate additions to the 

 earliest known forms, even if they are not develop- 

 ments of doctrine. A great variety of opinions has 

 been held as to the origin of this creed. It has not 

 only been attributed to the apostles directly, but a 

 legend has professed to settle the clauses respec- 

 tively contributed by the several apostles. The 

 earliest account of its origin we have from Rufinus, 

 an historical compiler of the 4th century. His state- 

 ment is, that the apostles, ' when met together, 

 and filled with the Holy Ghost, composed this 

 compend of what they were to preach, each one 

 contributing his share to the one composition, 

 which they resolved to give as a rule of faith to 

 those who should believe. ' But Rufinus is no great 

 historical authority, and even learned Roman 

 Catholics ( as Wetzer and Welte ) regard the story 

 as a legend. It is not improbable in itself, how- 

 ever, that even in the age of the apostles some 

 formula of belief existed. The exact form of the 

 present creed cannot pretend to be so ancient by 

 four hundred years, but Irenseus repeats a creed 

 not much unlike the present ; and Tertullian also 

 affirms that a similar creed had been ' prevalent as 

 a rule of faith in the church from the beginning of 



