Imatges de pàgina
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where any adjudication comprised the essential parts of other cases, I have avoided a separate recital of them as unnecessary; but as the arguments in charitable cases are of a nature more general and comprehensive than on most other judicial subjects, and as most of the decisions contain principles of a more enlarged and extensive use, I have been frequently induced to insert the whole, rather than to hazard a mutilated substance.

In thus forming a new work, I have, however, preserved the model of the old one; but the arrangement of which will, it is hoped, appear to have been considerably improved.

The establishment of monastic institutions is to be deemed the fruitful parent of our modern charitable uses, and in this part of my progress I could have indulged a fondness for research into antiquities, by conducting my reader through many a venerable ruin, and by marking the transitory splendour of human pride, did not the more practical and useful part of my labours frequently arrest my step, and place me in the centre of our own aula regis, where the administration of equity and justice, raised upon the unshaken basis of a trifold legislature, presents a lustre

a lustre far more glorious, and a monument of wisdom far more durable and permanent.

The benevolent energy of christianity received, by the effects of the Reformation, an expansion which, under its former restraints, it could never have acquired; it has since diffused itself with a more genial influence, because every man has learnt his own capacity to guide and direct it; while its exertious were confined to one order of men, the others merely exercised a blind beneficence; and as every gift was expected to be munificent, pride or ostentation, superstition or fear, alternately misguided opulent benefactors, and real charity was reserved for a future day to become, as it has since become, universal. The evidence of this principle is the volume here offered to consideration: the restraints of mortmain, and the limitations wisely placed by the legislature and by the courts upon charitable uses, amply evince, at the present day, when very few of the ancient motives can fairly be said. to prevail, the liberal state of the public mind, the love and charity borne towards one another, and the anxious desire of all, that a due proportion of national and individual prosperity should be devoted towards the relief of suffering

and

and distress; and it must ever form the prayer of a true patriot, that the urbanity and compassion, which have ever dignified the character of the United Kingdom, from the cottage to the throne, may by no vicissitude of public or of private fortune ever be relaxed or subverted!

"The liberal spirit of this nation at the present hour (says Dr. Vincent) is all directed to its proper end it is in every instance designed to relieve unavoidable distress, or promote industry; and whatever promotes industry augments the sum of happiness in the world. Designed, I say, and I hope executed; for in every charity where attention is paid to economy, each subscriber can do more good by his subscription, than by expending the same sum on the same objects himself."

The perusal of the following work will prove that the energy which actuates the breast of virtuous charity, finds a ready asylum in the courts of equity, where it has been declared that the statute of mortmain was never designed to prevent charities, but to restrain a too copious endowment of them, to the detriment of the com

* Dr. Vincent's Discourse to the People of England.

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munity-and where it has been always found that the utmost ambiguity, or uncertainty of expression in the will of the donor, shall be supplied and interpreted in favour of charity, if it any wise be discovered what charity was designed. But though the legislature has thought fit to leave all personal estate at the free disposition of its possessor, and though our courts of law and equity are thus well disposed to encourage the promotion of every good work of this kind*, still there may arise considerations, which, if duly weighed, may perhaps operate in some degree towards restraining an unlimited extension in the number of charitable institutions with which this metropolis is surrounded, and with which the country abounds. Their great number tends to injure the support of each other, which generally depends on voluntary and casual contributions: and those which have not the means, or do not by the most frugal management

* There are four objects; within one of which, all charity 10Vez. jun.58%. to be administered in the court of Chancery must fall: -1. Relief of the indigent, in various ways; money, provisions, education, medical assistance, &c. ; 2. The advancement of learning; 3. The advancement of religion; and 4. which is the most difficult, the advancement of objects of general public utility. preserve

preserve a permanent capital, must be considered as standing upon a very uncertain foundation.

There are many institutions of charity of so similar a nature in their object and extent, and embracing so nearly the same districts, that they might easily be united; and thereby the incomes, which barely serve to keep up their respective annual expence, would enable the directors to relieve a considerably greater number of poor. By this union, the very serious charge of so many separate establishments of houses and offices would be saved.

But the motives which have given birth to some of the modern institutions of charity, have not always been founded in principles of true charity, though it must be confessed that they have relieved hundreds of the indigent poor. may Ill success at an election to some office, and the unwarrantable practice of purchasing offices, by laying down subscriptions for a long list of names, so as to outvote an adversary, and swallow up the choice of the majority of the old patrons, have successively been productive of new institutions, set up for the support or the introduction to practice of young professional

men,

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