At this date, then, there wras made a distinction be- tween presiding elders and travelling elders, and not before. All the elders previous to 1792, therefore, were elected and appointed to the office and duties of presid- ing elder by the Conference, and each had equal au- thority in charge in the absence of the bishop.
Against this position, those who approve of the ex- isting practice of the appointing of presiding elders by the bishop urge, first, that from 1785 to 1792 there were each year more elders than presiding elders ; secondly, that the presiding elders were appointed to their districts, and that the appointment was by the bishop; and, thirdly, that if the bishops did appoint elders to preside over other elders, the Conferences not calling the bishops to account consented to the change, and thereby made it valid ; and that it was the practice of the Church from 1784 to 1792, notwithstanding the disciplines required otherwise (see letter by Dr. D. Sherman in ZUxis Herald, March, 1876) ; and that Dr. Emory and others interpreted falsely the action of the early Methodist Church in America (comp. Stevens. Hist, of the M. E. Church, ii, 222, 224). The presiding duties which made of an elder a presiding elder did not, in the practice of the Church, belong to this new- order in the ministry as soon as it was constituted. They belonged to the assistants, and were gradually trans-
PRESS
560
PRESSLY
ferred to the elders; and when, after the practice of nearly two vears, they were actually transferred, the custom was legalized, the office of assistant was abol- ished, ami the word disappeared from the minutes (see the Slinutes and Discipline, A.D. 1786). The idea of this transfer originated in the mind of bishop Asbury, who found, after the eldership was instituted, as he Baj a in his Notes on the Discipline, "that tins order was so necessan thai he would make them rulers. Even his idea of the presiding eldership was no( contemporane- ous with the instituting of the order of elders, bul came, as he says, when he "afterwards found that" they would be useful in ruling (see Notes 'in the Disci- pline, by Coke and Asburj |. His idea was not put in practice until the Annual Conferences of L785, when. as Lee (History, p. L20) slates, the presiding eldership originated, bul only in an inchoate form. This was mouths after the order of elders had been instituted. When, in 1786, the first law was made relative to the presiding elder-hip. it was made possible by the Disci- pline for every elder to become a presiding elder, so far as the duties were concerned, and here is where Emory and others have been misled. Bul as the bishop al- ways appointed the ruling or presiding elders from the order of elders | Lee, History, p. 150), the practice was never to make all the elders ruling or presiding elders. Hence, from 1786 to 1792, the law of the Discipline never entirely agreed with the practice in the appoint- ments, for there were hosts of elders who were never presiding elders. In the Conference of L792, however, the law was made to harmonize with the practice. In the ancienl Church the chorepiscopi I irtpiodtvrai) filled an office which must have given Mr. Wesley the sug- gestion for the assistant he called into office. See Em- ory, Hist, of the Discipline, p. 136 sq.; Sherman. Hist. af tin />i.<iiji!i/n. p. l.j.'i; Uingliam. Eccles. Antiquities, i. 56, 69; Porter, Compendium of Methodism ; Meth.Qu. Rev. .Ian. 1875, art. iv; April. 1*7(1. art. iv: National Repository, May. 1876, Editor's Study. See also Rural Deans, in the article Dean of this Cyclopcedia, ii, 711. (J.H.W.)
Press (rYtlB, purah ; Xjjvoc). Among the Israel- ites this was a large trough, usually hewn out of stone (Isa. \. 2; .Matt. xxi. 33; comp. Nonni, Dwnys. xii, 330) or dug in the earth and walled up (Harmer, iii. 117). It had a trellised opening below. This trough was called gath, P3 (in the Talmud also iirJl), or purah, i~H*£ (Isa. lxiii, 3) ; ami in it the grapes were trodden by men (five usually work together in Persia still: Kampfer, A mom. p. 377). Hence the phrase to tread tin wine-press (dob xxiv, 11; Lam. i. 15; Isa. lxiii. 2). The juice ( lleh. tirSsh, IZJT1)?!) flowed through the opening into a vat, usually in the earth (called yekeb, ""■ Gr. wpo\r\vtov, Isa. v. 2, or vTro\f)viov, Isa. xvi. in. Mark xii. and simply XtJVOC, Mall. xxi. 33; Lat. lacus riiiiiiiii.--, Colum. xii, 18: in Job xxiv, LI, this word means, however, the trough or press itself). From this ii i- taken for fermentation in earthen vessels. These presses, which are siill common in the Easl and the Levant (Arvieux iv. 272 sq.; Kampfer. ui sup.), wen almost always outside of the towns, eithefin the vineyards or on mountains (Zech. \i\. 10; Isa. v, 2; Matt, xxi, 33; Mark xii. 1 ; Rev. xiv, 20). The slaves musl usually have trodden the press, as ii was hard Labor (Isa. lxiii, l sq.). Thej wen cheered in it by Singing and music isee Isa. xvi. Ill; Jer. xxv,30; dud-. ix. .'7: Jer.xxv,30; xlviii, 33). See Ugolino, D< /:■ Rust. Vet. l/>ii. vi, l 1 sip. in his Thesaur. xxix. Winer. See i iii : Wise.