Presan, GENERAL (b. 1861). 

 Rumanian soldier. Born in Walla- 

 chia, Jan. 27, 18P>1, he was edu- 

 cated at the 

 Military Acad- 

 emy, Bukarest, 

 and entered the 

 army as a lieu- 

 tenant in the 

 artillery in 

 July, 1880, 

 becoming a 

 general in 

 General Presan, May 190 7. On 

 Rnmaman soldier th / entry of 



Rumania into the Great War in 

 1916 he was in command of the 

 Rumanian Fourth Army, and in 

 Nov. was commander-in-chief of 

 the Rumanian Third and Fourth 

 Armies, taking part in the battle of 

 the Argesul, especially in that por- 

 tion of it which was fought S.W. of 

 Bukarest and is known as the 

 battle of the Neajlovu. Later, 

 when Averescu was appointed 



63 1 8 



generalissimo under King Ferdi- 

 nand, Presan became chief of 

 staff. 



Presanella. Mt. mass ol S.W. 

 Tirol. It is situated N.E. of 

 Monte Adamello (q.v. ) and reaches 

 an alt. of 11,690 ft. It was first 

 ascended by Freshfield in 1864. 



Presbyopia (Gr. presbys, old 

 man ; ops, eye). Diminution in 

 the power of focusing the eye, 

 owing to advancing age. Near 

 objects must be held increasingly 

 farther from the eye in order to be 

 seen distinctly. The condition is 

 corrected by wearing convex 

 glasses. See Eye ; Sight. 



Presbyter (Gr. presbyteros, 

 elder). Alternative name for an 

 elder of the early Christian Church, 

 the principal official of a Jewish 

 synagogue, and for a member of 

 the Sanhedrin. In the Presbyterian 

 churches it is applied to a member 

 of a presbytery and to a ruling 

 elder. See Bishop; Elder; Priest. 



PRESBYTERIANISM: ORIGIN & POLITY 



Rev. J. Moffatt. D.D.. Professor of Church History, U.F. College, Glasgow 



In connexion with this subject see the articles Calvinism . Dutch 

 Church : Huguenots ; Protestantism ; Reformation ; Scotland, Church 

 of. See also the article Christianity, those on the various branches 

 of Christianity ; and biographies of Knox and other leaders of 

 Presbyterianism 



Presbyterianism is the name for 

 the organization of the Christian 

 Church on the basis of rule by 

 presbyters. These are chosen by 

 the congregations and set apart 

 for their twofold duties of teaching 

 and ruling, the former office, which 

 includes the administration of 

 the sacraments, corresponding to 

 the clerical, the latter to the lay 

 element in other churches. The 

 presbyters are equal in rank, 

 electing temporary moderators or 

 presidents from their own number 

 in the presbyteries, synods, and 

 general assemblies, which form the 

 three church courts. 



Thus the three notes of Pres- 

 byterianism are : the parity of the 

 clergy, in distinction from the 

 episcopal system or the papal ; 

 the right of the congregation to 

 govern itself by means of office- 

 bearers chosen from its own mem- 

 bers a primitive right which was 

 only taken gradually from the 

 early Church ; and the avoidance 

 of congregational individualism by 

 means of administrative unity 

 secured in the church courts, where 

 the presbyters sit as representa- 

 tives of their various congrega- 

 tions. The presbyters are not 

 mere delegates, however ; they 

 are ordained for life, whether as 

 ministers or as ruling elders. 



When the Reformation broke up 

 the monarchical idea of church 

 polity which had been developed 



in the Middle Ages, the attempt to 

 express the functions of a Christian 

 church in polity led Calvin to 

 organize the Genevan church on a 

 presbyterian basis. Wherever the 

 reformed church found itself in a 

 monarchy, the tendency was to 

 conserve the episcopal polity in a 

 more or less modified form, as in 

 the English and the Scandinavian 

 churches. But where the church 

 had to assert its independence 

 against the civil authorities, as 

 especially in Holland and Scotland, 

 the presbyterian polity proved 

 more effective ; it secured for the 

 congregation their right of self- 

 government, although it is a mis- 

 take to identify this instinct off- 

 hand with any modern demo- 

 cratic tendency ; it also safe- 

 guarded the church against any- 

 thing like sacerdotalism. In in- 

 sisting that the jurisdiction of the 

 church must be in the hands of the 

 church, Presbyterianism also in- 

 sisted that the church was not 

 simply the clergy. 



Question oi Divine Right 

 From the 17th century onwards 

 a hot controversy raged upon the 

 divine right of episcopacy or pres- 

 bytery, which is only ceasing in 

 our own day as historical scholar- 

 ship intervenes to prove that 

 originally the conditions of the 

 church held both elements to- 

 gether, that neither can claim more 

 than validity on the basis of prac- 



PRESBYTERIANISM 



tical convenience, and that the 

 development in the 2nd century, 

 which led ultimately to the 

 medieval system of bishops and 

 cardinals, derived from political 

 exigencies which no longer exist, 

 or from doctrinal movements which 

 are open to question. All that 

 Presbyterianism, or any other 

 form of polity, can claim is that it 

 suits the genius of the Church and 

 conserves its practical ends, that 

 it guarantees whatever is requisite 

 to the well-being and efficiency of 

 the Church as God's people. 



Historically it is justified by 

 its success. Even in England, as 

 Matthew Arnold pointed out, 

 Hooker wrote his great treatise 

 " not because episcopalianism is 

 essential, but because its im- 

 pugners maintained that presby- 

 terianism is essential, and that 

 episcopalianism is sinful. Neither 

 the one nor the other is essential or 

 sinful, and much may be said on 

 behalf of both. But what is im- 

 portant to be remarked is, that 

 both were in the Church of Eng- 

 land at the Reformation, and that 

 Presbyterianism was only extruded 

 gradually." 



The opposite process took place 

 in Scotland, and it was largely due 

 to Scottish settlers that Presby- 

 terianism spread rapidly in Ireland 

 from the 17th century onwards, 

 whereas the Presbyterian Church 

 in Wales owed its origin to English 

 impetus in the 18th century. 

 Huguenots and Calvin 



On the Continent, the French 

 Huguenots naturally followed Cal- 

 vin, though they organized their 

 presbyterian polity on slightly 

 different lines. East of the Rhine, 

 political conditions hindered the 

 presbyterian polity, but Bohemia, 

 even before Calvin, had developed 

 a semi-presbyterian system, and 

 the remarkable church of Hun- 

 gary, with over half a million mem- 

 bers, attests the vigour of the 

 presbyterian system and its appeal 

 to the reformed Christians of that 

 country. Together with the scat- 

 tered and smaller communities, 

 which are thus organized elsewhere 

 upon the Continent, the Dutch, 

 British, French, Swiss, and Hun- 

 garian Presbyterians now number 

 about five millions, and the polity 

 has proved itself flexible enough 

 to live and thrive amidst the 

 complex environments of modern 

 life. 



It was European immigrants 

 who started Presbyterianism in 

 America, but not until the begin- 

 ning of the 18th century. Here 

 Presbyterianism is divided into a 

 number of churches, whose origin 

 is partly due to racial reasons, 

 partly to doctrinal ones. Next to 



