ELBURZ, a lofty mountain range in N. Persia, S. of the Caspian; also the name of the highest peak in the Caucasus (18,571 ft.).

ELDER, a name given to certain office-bearers in the Presbyterian Church, associated with the minister in certain spiritual functions short of teaching and administering sacraments; their duties embrace the general oversight of the congregation, and are of a wider nature than those of the deacons, whose functions are confined strictly to the secular interests of the church; they are generally elected by the church members, and ordained in the presence of the congregation; their term of office is in some cases for a stated number of years, but more generally for life.

ELDON, JOHN SCOTT, LORD, a celebrated English lawyer, born at Newcastle, of humble parentage; educated at Oxford for the Church, but got into difficulties through a runaway marriage; he betook himself to law, rose rapidly in his profession, and, entering Parliament, held important legal offices under Pitt; was made a Baron and Lord Chancellor, 1801, an office which he held for 26 years; retired from public life in 1835, and left a large fortune at his death; was noted for the shrewd equity of his judgments and his delay in delivering them (1751-1838).

EL DORADO (lit. the Land of Gold), a country which Orellana, the lieutenant of Pizzaro, pretended to have discovered in S. America, between the Amazon and Orinoco, and which he represented as abounding in gold and precious gems; now a region of purely imaginary wealth.

ELEANOR, queen of Edward I. of England and sister of ALFONSO X. (q. v.) of Castile, surnamed the Wise, accompanied her husband to the Crusade in 1269, and is said to have saved him by sucking the poison from a wound inflicted by a poisoned arrow; was buried at Westminster (1244-1290).

ELEATICS, a school of philosophy in Greece, founded by Xenophanes of Elia, and of which Parmenides and Zeno, both of Elia, were the leading adherents and advocates, the former developing the system and the latter completing it, the ground-principle of which was twofold—­the affirmation of the unity, and the negative of the diversity, of being—­in other words, the affirmation of pure being as alone real, to the exclusion of everything finite and merely phenomenal.  See “SARTOR,” BK.  I. CHAP. 8.

ELECTION, THE DOCTRINE OF, the doctrine that the salvation of a man depends on the election of God for that end, of which there are two chief phases—­the one is election to be Christ’s, or unconditional election, and the other that it is election in Christ, or conditional election.

ELECTORS, THE, or KURFUeRSTS, OF GERMANY, German princes who enjoyed the privilege of disposing of the imperial crown, ranked next the emperor, and were originally six in number, but grew to eight and finally nine; three were ecclesiastical—­the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves, and three secular—­the Electors of Saxony, the Palatinate, and Bohemia, to which were added at successive periods the Electors of Brandenburg, of Bavaria, and Hanover.  “There never was a tenth; and the Holy Roman Empire, as it was called, which was a grand object once, but had gone about in a superannuated and plainly crazy state some centuries, was at last put out of pain by Napoleon, August 6, 1806, and allowed to cease from the world.”