are Jean Claude (d. 1687), author of the Essay on the Sermon, | and Jacques Saurin (d. 1730). In England the rivalry was not between Catholic and Reformer, but between Anglican and Nonconformist, or, if we may use the wide but less correct term, Puritan. On the one hand are Andrewes, Hall, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, Barrow and South; on the other Baxter, Calamy, the Goodwins, Howe, Owen, Bunyan, in each case but a few names out of many. The sermons of these men were largely scriptural, the cardinal evangelical truths being emphasized with reality and vigour, but with a tendency to abstract theology rather than concrete religion. The danger was felt by the university of Cambridge, which in 1674 passed a statute forbidding its preachers to read their sermons.

Germany, harassed by the Thirty Years' War and deadened by a rigid Lutheranism, can show little besides Andrea and Johann Arndt until the coming of the Pietists (see PIETISM), A. H. Francke and Philipp Spencer, with Paul Gerhardt and his cousin Johann. The early years of the 18th century were a time of deadness as regards preaching. The Illumination in Germany and Deism in England were largely responsible for this, though the names of J. A. Bengel (better known as a commentator), Zinzendorf, Butler and the Erskines helped to redeem the time from the reproach of being the dark age of Protestantism. In the Roman Catholic Church the greatest force was Bridaine in France, a popular preacher of high worth. | But, generally speaking, there was no heart in preaching, sermons were unimpassioned, stilted and formal presentations of ethics and apologetics, seldom delivered extempore.

5. The Modern Period may be said to begin in 1738, the year in which John Wesley began his memorable work. Preaching once more was based on the Bible, which was expounded with force and earnestness, and though throughout the century there remained a good many pulpiteers who produced nothing but solemn fudge, the example and stimulus given by Wesley and Whitefield were almost immeasurably productive. Whitefield was the greater orator, Wesley the better thinker; but, diverse in temperament as they were, they alike laid emphasis on openair preaching. In their train came the great field preachers of Wales, like John Elias and Christmas Evans, and later the Primitive Methodists, who by their camp meetings and itinerancies kept religious enthusiasm alive when Wesleyan Methodism | was in peril of hardening. Meanwhile, in America the Puritan tradition, adapted to the new conditions, is represented by Cotton Mather, and later by Jonathan Edwards, the greatest preacher of his time and country. Whitefield's visits raised a band of pioneer preachers, cultured and uncultured, men who knew their Bibles but often interpreted them awry.

In the early 19th century the pulpit had a great power, especially in Wales, where it was the vehicle of almost every kind of knowledge. And it may be doubted whether, all in all, preaching has ever reached so uniformly high a level or been so powerful a force as during the 19th century, and this in spite of other forces similarly making for enlightenment and morality. It shared to the full in all the quickening that transformed so many departments of civilization during that epoch, and has been specially influenced by the missionary enterprise, the discoveries of science, the fuller knowledge of the Bible, the awakened zeal for social service. Modern preaching, like ancient preaching, has been so varied, depending, as it so largely does, on the personality of the preacher, that it is not possible to speak of its characteristics. Nor can one do more than enumerate a few outstanding modern names, exclusive of living preachers. In the Roman Catholic Church are the Italians Ventura and Curci, the Germans Diepenbrock and Foerster, the French Lacordaire, Dupanloup, Loyson (Père Hyacinthe) and Henri Didon. Of Protestants, Germany produced Schleiermacher, Claus Harms, Tholuck and F. W. Krummacher; France, Vinet and the Monods. In England representative Anglican preachers were Newman (whose best preaching preceded his obedience to Rome), T. Arnold, F. W. Robertson, Liddon, Farrar, Magee; of Free Churchmen, T. Binney, Thomas Jones, R. W. Dale and Joseph Parker (Congregationalist); Robert Hall, C. H. Spurgeon and Alexander

Maclaren (Baptists); W. M. Punshon, Hugh Price Hughes and Peter Mackenzie (Wesleyan); James Martineau (Unitarian). The Scottish Churches gave Edward Irving, Thos. Chalmers, R. S. Candlish, R. M. McCheyne and John Caird. In America, honoured names are those of W. E. Channing, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Bushnell, Phillips Brooks, to mention only a few.

See J. M. Neale, Medieval Preachers and Preaching (1857); R. Rothe, Geschichte der Predigt vom Anfang bis auf Schleiermacher (1881); J. P. Mahaffy, Decay of Modern Preaching (1882); E. C. Durgan, A History of Preaching (1906), and preface to The Pulpit Encyclopaedia, vol. i. (1909); and the various volumes of the Yale Lectures on Preaching. Also SERMON. (A. J. G.)

"An

PREAMBLE (Med. Lat. praeambulum, from praeambulare, to walk before), an introductory statement, a preliminary explanation. The term is particularly applied to the opening paragraph of a statute which summarizes the intention of the legislature in passing the measure; thus the preamble of the statute, of which the title is the Children Act 1908, is as follows: Act to consolidate and amend the Law relating to the Protection of Children and Young Persons, Reformatory and Industrial Schools and Juvenile Offenders, and otherwise to amend the Law with respect to Children and Young Persons." The procedure in the British parliament differs in regard to the preambles of public and private bills. The second reading of a public bill affirms the principle, and therefore in committee the preamble stands postponed till after the consideration of the clauses, when it is considered in reference to those clauses as amended and altered if need be (Standing Order 35). On the other hand, the preamble of a private bill, if opposed, is considered first in committee, and counsel for the bill deals with the expediency of the bill, calls witnesses for the allegation in the preamble, and petitions against the bill are then heard; if the preamble is negatived the bill is dropped, if affirmed it is gone through clause by clause. On unopposed private bills the preamble has also to be proved, more especially with regard to whether the clauses required by the standing orders are inserted (see May, Parliamentary Practice, 1906, pp. 483, 808 seq.).

PREANGER, a residency of the island of Java, Dutch East Indies, bounded S. by the Indian Ocean, W. by Bantam, N. by Batavia and Krawang, and N.E. and E. by Cheribon and Banyumas. It is officially termed the Preanger Regencies, of which there are five, covering the several administrative divisions. It also includes the small island of Nusa Were. The natives are Sudanese. The whole residency is mountainous, but there are two main parallel ranges of peaks along the northern boundary and through the middle. Among these are to be found a singularly large number of both active and inactive volcanoes, including the well-known Salak and Gede in the north, and bunched together at the eastern end the Chikorai, Papandayan, Wayang, Malabar, Guntur, &c., ranging from 6000 to 10,000 ft. in height. The rivers of the province belong to the basins of the Indian Ocean and the Java Sea respectively, the water-parting being formed by the western and eastern ends respectively of the northern and southern lines of mountain peaks. The two which drain the largest basin are the Chi Manuk and the Chi Tarum, both rising in the eastern end of the province and flowing northcast and north-west respectively to the Java Sea. The Chi Tandui, also rising here, flows south-cast to the Indian Ocean, and alone of all the rivers in this province is navigable. Large stretches of marsh occur on each side of this river, as well as here and. there among the hills where inland lakes formerly existed, as, for instance, near Bandung. Crater lakes are Telaga (lake) Budas, in the crater of the volcano of the same name in the south-east, and Telaga Warna, on the slopes of the Gede, famous for its beautiful tinting. On the same side of the Gede is the health resort of Sindanglaya (founded 1850-1860), with a mineral spring containing salt, and close by is the country residence of Chipanas, belonging to the governor general.

Numerous warm springs are scattered about this volcanic region. Petroleum and coal have been worked, and there is a rich yield of chalk, while a good quality of bricks is made from the

PREBENDARY (Lat. praebendo-give or grant, through Low Lat. praebenda), one who holds a prebend, namely an endowment in land, or pension in money, given to a cathedral or conventual church in praebendam-that is, for the maintenance of a secular priest or regular canon. In the early Church the title had a more general signification. The word praebenda originally signified the daily rations given to soldiers, whence it passed to indicate daily distributions of food and drink to monks, canons, &c. It became a frequent custom to grant such a prebend from the resources of a monastery to certain poor people or to the founder. Such persons were, literally, prebendaries. At a later date, when the custom in collegiate churches of living in common had become less general, a certain amount of the church revenue was divided among the clergy serving such a church, and each portion (no longer of meat or drink only) was called a prebend. The clergy of such churches were generally canons, and the titles canon and prebendary were, and are, sometimes used as synonymous. A member of such a college is a canon in virtue of the spiritual duties which he has to perform, and the assignation to him of a stall in choir and a place in chapter; he is a prebendary in virtue of his benefice. In the Roman Catholic Church the duties of a prebendary as such generally consist in his attendance at choral office in his church. In the Anglican Church he usually bears his part in the conducting of the ordinary church services, except when he has a vicar, as in the old cathedral foundations (see CATHEDRAL). A prebendary may be either simple or a dignitary. In the former case he has no cure and no more than his revenue for his support; in the latter he has always a jurisdiction annexed. In the Anglican Church the bishop is of common right patron of all prebends, and if a prebend is in the gift of a lay patron he must present his candidate to the bishop who institutes as to other benefices. No person may hold more than one prebend in the same church; therefore, if a prebendary accepts a deanery in his church his prebend becomes void by cession. A prebend is practically a sinecure, and the holder has no cure of souls as such. He may, and often does, accept a parochial office or chaplaincy in addition.

In the middle ages there were many less regular kinds of prebends: e.g. praebenda doctoralis, with which teaching duties were connected, praebenda lectoralis, praebenda missae, to which the duty of saying a certain number of masses was attached, praebenda mortuaria, founded for the saying of masses for the dead. Chantries belonged to this class. All these prebends were generally assigned to special holders, but there were also praebendae currentes, which were not held by any persons in particular. Sometimes prebends were held by❘ boys who sang in choir, praebendae pueriles. Occasionally the name of prebendary was applied to those servants in a monastery who attended to the food. In England the word prebendary was sometimes used as synonymous with prebend, as prebend was occasionally used for prebendary. Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, ed. L. Favre (Niort, 1883, &c.); Migne, Encyclopédie théologique, Ist series, vol. x. (s. Droit Canon); Sir R. J. Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England (2nd ed., 1895). (E. O'N.) PRE-CAMBRIAN, in geology, the enormously long and indistinctly defined period of time anterior to the Cambrian period. In the restricted sense in which it is now often employed it embraces a period or group of periods subsequent to the Archean (q.v.) and anterior to the Cambrian, although some writers still prefer to include the former. The superior limit of pre-Cambrian rocks is fixed by the Olenellus fauna at the base

Three or more great stratigraphical breaks have been recognized within the system of pre-Cambrian rocks; but how far these breaks synchronize in widely separated regions where they are found is difficult to determine in the absence of good palaeontological evidence.

Britain is the Torridonian (q.v.) group of the north-west highlands The most striking development of pre-Cambrian rocks in Great of Scotland, which lies with strong unconformability between the Lewisian gneiss and the basal quartzite of the Cambrian. The Eastern or Dalradian (q.v.) schists of Scotland and their equivalents in Ireland and Anglesey may be, in part at least, of the same age. remnant of an ancient ridge now forming the Longmynd and the In Shropshire, in the neighbourhood of the Welsh border, is the smaller hills to the west, Caer Caradoc, the Wrekin, and the Cardington Hills. The latter are built mainly of much altered porphyries and tuffs which C. Callaway named the Uriconian series; this series slates forming the Longmynd cannot yet be definitely assigned to is clearly of pre-Cambrian age. The great mass of grits, flags and this period, though they may be provisionally retained here under Callaway's name, Londmyndian. Probably contemporaneous with the Uriconian are the volcanic series of Barnt Green, Licky Hill and here. In the Charnwood Forest a group of crystalline rocks, named Caldecote. The micaceous schists of Rushton (Salop) may be placed Charnian by W. W. Watts, rises up in the form of small hills amid the surrounding Trias; they are classed as follows in descending order: The Brand series, including the slates of Swithland and Maplewell series, including the olive hornstones of Bradgate, the Groby, quartzite and conglomerate and purple and green beds; the Woodhouse beds, the slate-agglomerate of Roecliffe, the Beacon Hill hornstones and a felspathic agglomerate; and the Blackbrook series of grits and hornstones. The ancient volcanic rocks of St Davids, Pembrokeshire, were formerly regarded by H. Hicks as of pre-Cambrian age, in which he recognized a lower, "Dimetian," a middle, "Arvonian," and an upper," Pebidian," series. The preCambrian age of these rocks was for a long time disputed, but J. F. N. Green (Q. J. Geol. Soc., 1908, 64, p. 363) made it clear that (Trachytic group), and that Hicks's Dimetian," the St Davids there is an Upper Pebidian (Rhyolitic group), and a Lower Pebidian granophyre, is a laccolitic mass intrusive in the Pebidian. Both the Pebidian volcanic rocks and the intruded granophyre are separated from the Cambrian by an unconformity.

In Finno-Scandinavia pre-Cambrian rocks are well developed. In the Scandinavian mountain ranges are the Seve and Sparagmite formations; the latter, a coarse-grained felspathic sandstone, is very similar to the Torridonian of Scotland; it occurs also in Enontekis in Finland. Next in descending order come the Jotnian sandstones (2000 metres), which retain ripple-marks; they are associated with conglomerates and slates and intrusive diabase and the Rapakiwi granite. The Jotnian group rests unconformably upon the Jatulian quartzites and schists, with slates, dolomite and carbonaceous beds (north of Lake Onega is a bed of anthracite 2 metres thick). Outflows of diabase and gabbro occur in this series, which is from 1600 to 2000 metres in thickness. Below the Jatulian is another group of schistose sediments, the Kalevian, more strongly folded than the former and separated from the groups above and below by unconformable junctions. These rocks are regarded by J. J. Sederholm as older than the Huronian of North America (possibly analogous to the Keewatin formation), and yet several groups of sediments in this region (Botnian schists, &c.) lie between the Kalevian series and the granitic (Archean) complex. thickness in North America; all types of sediment are represented Pre-Cambrian rocks occupy large areas and attain an enormous

in various stages of metamorphism, and with these are igneous rocks, often developed upon a vast scale. They have been subdivided into the following groups or formations: an upper Keweenawan

and a lower Huronian group; the latter is subdivided into an upper Animikean (north-east Minnesota) or Penokean (north-west Wisconsin); a middle and a lower division. Each of these four groups is separated by marked unconformity from the rocks above and below. Huronian rocks are well developed in the following districts: the Marquette region of northern Michigan, comprising quartzites, slates and conglomerates, with important iron-bearing slates and schists and ferruginous cherts; in the Menominee district of Michigan and Wisconsin similar rocks occur; the Penokee-Gogebic district of Wisconsin and Michigan comprises quartzites, shales and limestones, with beds and dikes of diabase and olivine-gabbro; the same rocks occur in the Crystal Falls, north Michigan; the Mesabi and Vermilion districts, Minnesota, and north of Lake Michigan rock groups of this age take an important place. The valuable iron ores of Mesabi, Penokee-Gogebic and Menominee belong mainly to the Animikean group; in the Penokee rocks of this age vast thicknesses of igneous rocks constitute the greater part of the formation, The Keweenawan rocks are said to attain the enormous thickness of 50,000 ft.; the higher beds are mainly sandy sediments and conglomerates; in the lower portions are great igneous masses, gabbros, diabase and porphyries; thus in the St Croix valley, northwest Wisconsin and Minnesota, no fewer than 65 lava flows and 5 conglomeratic beds have been counted, which together aggregate some 20,000 ft. in thickness. Some of these lava flows appear to have been due to fissure eruptions. The native copper deposits of this age in north Michigan are the most extensive known.

Pre-Cambrian rocks occupy large areas and reach great thicknesses in the eastern provinces of Canada; in Newfoundland 10,000 ft. of strata lie between the Archean and Cambrian (the Terranovian series of South Hunt; Avalon group of others); similar rocks occur also north of the Great Lakes and in the Hudson Bay region. They are found also in great force in the Colorado Canyon, in the Adirondack Mountains, and Black Hills of S. Dakota and elsewhere. Turning to Europe, we find pre-Cambrian rocks in Brittany, the "phyllades de Saint Lô," or Briovérian of Chas. Barrois; and along the western border of France and south-west of the central massif In the Fichtelgebirge, the Silesian mountains and east Thuringia similar rocks occur; the Przibramer Schiefer of Lipold and rocks in J. Barrande's stage A are of this age. Probably the metamor. phosed eruptive rocks on the southern border of the Hunsrück and Taunus are pre-Cambrian. Large tracts of metamorphic sedimentary rocks that may be classed here are found in Shantung and north China, and probably also in Brazil, India and Australia. In South Africa the gold-bearing Witwatersrand beds of the Transvaal and the overlying Ventersdorp and Potchefstroom systems; the Griqualand system and Cango and Ibeques systems of Cape Colony, all occur above Archean rocks and below those of Devonian age; they cannot as yet, therefore, be classed as pre-Cambrian and their age

is still uncertain.

Little can be said of the climatic conditions of this remote period, the fossil evidence being so poor; but it is of interest to note that in certain regions, viz. in the Lake Huron region, in the Gaisa series of Varanger Fjord, Norway, and in the Yangtse district in China, conglomerate beds are found in which many of the boulders are scratched like those of the Dwyka beds of South Africa, and thus suggest the possibility of glacial conditions at some stages of the period.

For literature see Geological Literature added to the Geological Society's Library (annual). (J. A. H.) PRECARIOUS, literally, held on the good-will of another, or on entreaty (Lat. prex, precis, prayer) to another. The word is used, in law, of a tenure of land, office, &c., held at the pleasure of another. In general usage it has the significance of something uncertain, dangerous or risky.

PRECEDENCE (from Lat. praecedere, to go before, precede). This word in the sense in which it is here employed means priority of place, or superiority of rank, in the conventional system of arrangement under which the more eminent and dignified orders of the community are classified on occasions of public ceremony and in the intercourse of private life. In the United Kingdom there is no complete and comprehensive code whereby the scheme of social gradation has been defined and settled, once and for all, on a sure and lasting foundation. The principles and rules at present controlling it have been formulated at different periods and have been derived from various sources. The Crown is the fountain of honour, and it is its undoubted prerogative to confer on any of its subjects, in any part of its dominions, such titles and distinctions and such rank and place as to it may seem meet and convenient. Its discretion in this respect is altogether unbounded at common law, and is limited in those cases only wherein it has been submitted to restraint

by act of parliament. In the old time all questions of precedence came in the ordinary course of things within the jurisdiction of the court of chivalry, in which the lord high constable and earl marshal presided as judges, and of which the kings of arms, heralds and pursuivants were the assessors and executive officers. When, however, points of unusual moment and magnitude happened to be brought into controversy, they were occasionally considered and decided by the sovereign in person, or by a special commission, or by the privy council, or even by the parliament itself. But it was not until towards the middle of the 16th century that precedence was made the subject of any legislation in the proper meaning of the term.1

In 1539 an act “for the placing of the Lords in Parliament " (31 Hen. VIII. c. 10) was passed at the instance of the king, and by it the relative rank of the members of the royal family, of the great officers of state and the household, and of the hierarchy and the peerage was definitely and definitively ascertained. In 1563 an act "for declaring the authority of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and the Lord Chancellor to be the same (5 Eliz. c. 18) also declared their precedence to be the same. Questions concerning the precedence of peers are mentioned in the Lords Journals 4 & 5 Ph. and M. and 39 Eliz., but in the reign of James I. such questions were often referred to the commissioners for executing the office of earl marshal. In the reign of Charles I. the House of Lords considered several questions of precedency and objected in the earl of Banbury's case to warrants overruling the statute of 31 Hen. VIII. In 1689 an act "for enabling Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal to execute the office of Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper" (1 Will. and Mary c. 21) gave to the commissioners not being peers of the realm place next to the speaker of the House of Commons and to the speaker place next to the peers of the realm. In 1707 the Act of Union with Scotland (6 Anne c. 11) provided that all peers of Scotland should be peers of Great Britain' and should have rank immediately after the peers of the like degrees in England at the time of the union and before all peers of Great Britain of the like degrees created after the union. In 1800 the Act of Union with Ireland (39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 67) provided that the lords spiritual of Ireland should have rank immediately after the lords spiritual of the same degree in Great Britain, and that the lords temporal of Ireland should have rank immediately after the lords temporal of the same degree in Great Britain at the time of the union, and further that "peerages of Ireland created after the union should have precedence with peerages of the United Kingdom created after the union according to the dates of their creation." At different times too during the current century several statutes have been passed for the reform and extension of the judicial organization which have very materially affected the precedence of the judges, more especially the Judicature Act of 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 66), under which the lords justices of appeal and the justices of the High Court now receive their appointments. But the statute of Henry VIII. "for the placing of the Lords" still remains the only legislative measure in which it has been attempted to deal directly and systematically with any large and important section of the scale of general precedence; and the law, so far as it relates to the ranking of the sovereign's immediate kindred whether lineal or collateral, the principal ministers of the Crown and court, and both the spiritual and temporal members of the House of Lords, is to all practical intents and purposes what it was made by that statute nearly 350 years ago. Where no act of parliament applies precedence is determined either by the will-and pleasure of the sovereign or by what is accepted as "ancient usage and established

Ample materials for the satisfaction of the curiosity of those who are desirous of investigating the history of precedence under its wider and more remote aspects will be found in such writers as Selden or Mackenzie, together with the authorities quoted or referred to by them: Selden, Tilles of Honor, pt. ii. p. 740 seq. (London, 1672); Mackenzie, Observations upon The Laws and Customs of Nations as to Precedency (Edinburgh, 1680; and also reprinted in Guillim, Display of Heraldry, 6th ed., London, 1724).

For the parliamentary rights of Scottish peers see article

PEERAGE