ister, and defend their own creeds in their own way, alike unhindered and unhelped by the State. The creeds may be a law to the Church, but they are no law to the State. They are not co-ordinate with the civil law, and the latter never undertakes their defense.

6. The State, in order to meet certain necessities of Church organisms, provides for the incorporation and continuance of religious societies as bodies corporate; or, in the omission to do so, which is the fact in some of the States, it provides for a system of trusts, vested and perpetuated in natural persons. No religious society is compelled to incorporate itself. All that the State does is simply to furnish the opportunity. And, when such a society is incorporated, it is in legal contemplation simply a civil corporation, as much so as a bank, an insurance company, or a railway company. It is in this respect the creature of legislative authority, and subject to that authority. The method of incorporation may be through a general law, or by a special charter; yet in either case the product is a civil corporation, and nothing else. All its attributes and powers are of this character. The control of the State over it respects it solely as such.

Generally a Church proper is enclosed within the religious society, or rather exists coincidently with it: yet this is not necessarily so, and all the members of the religious society are not necessarily members of the Church, and all the members of the latter are

not necessarily members of the former. The Church may have one rule of membership, and the religious society may be incorporated under another and different rule. The intimate connection between the two organizations should not lead us to confound them, or suppose them to be the same.

The Church proper, considered in its collective character, has no corporate powers which are known to the law. The religious society, when incorporated, has the general powers of a civil corporation, and also the special powers which the State may see fit to grant, as the means of attaining the special ends of its existence; and in respect to the latter powers it differs from a bank only as a bank differs from a railway company. It is a civil corporation to do a certain kind of business, which every Church needs to have done.

7. The State, in providing for the incorporation of religious societies, or adopting a system of trusts, adapts its regulations, to some extent, to the peculiarities of different Church organizations. This fact is conspicuously seen in the Act of April 5th, 1813, passed by the legislature of New York for the incorporation of religious societies, and the subsequent acts amendatory thereof. There are specialties connected with the incorporation of Episcopal Churches, Reformed Churches, Reformed Presbyterian Churches, and Roman Catholic Churches, which are intended to be suited to their respective organizations. The Quakers and the Shakers,

having no incorporated religious societies, are provided for in the laws of New York through a system of trusts vested in natural persons, and designed to serve the ends sought to be secured by incorporation. Where there are no special features of Church organization, making a special method necessary, the law has a general method of incorporation by the election of trustees in conformity with prescribed rules.

Thus the laws of New York suit themselves to the wants of particular Church organizations, and seek, without discrimination for or against any, to secure to all at their option the civil benefits of incorporation, or, in its absence, those of a system of trusts. Similar arrangements are found in other States. The incorporation of religious societies or a trust system for their benefit is, with some diversities of detail, among the standard legal usages of the American States.

8. What are called the temporalities of the Church, in distinction from things moral and spiritual that pertain to its doctrine and government, are by authority of the State assigned to the incorporated religious society, subject to regulations prescribed by law. The ownership of Church property and the power to make legal contracts are vested in this society. It is known to law as a civil corporation and can act in this capacity. It has a corporate title and seal. It can sue and be sued. It exists by perpetual succession. It acts

through a board of agents created by its own choice in conformity with law. There are differences in the laws of the different States with respect to religious corporations; yet the one feature common to them all is that of making legal provision for the orderly and proper exercise of those civil powers that stand connected with the acquisition, possession, use, and disposal of Church property.

Property is the one temporality of the Church which forms the subject-matter of nearly all the legislation and all the judicial decisions that have any reference to the Church. Take out this one element and the rights in various ways allied therewith; and there would hardly be a question in relation to the Church, other than that of protection, which civil tribunals would have occasion to consider. Justice Strong says (p. 40):-" Almost all, if not all the questions mooted in the civil courts of this country relating to Church polity, discipline, officers or members, have arisen incidentally in controversies respecting Church property." This is the one point in respect to which the powers of the State come in contact with the Church; and but for it the State, under our system of government, would have nothing to do with Churches beyond affording them protection against any improper disturbance. There must be some law in regard to Church property, and the State is the only party that can either make or administer it.

9. It is a general principle of law, subject to various qualifications in the different States, that the legal doctrine of trusts and charitable uses applies to the tenure of Church property, and that such property cannot be diverted from the use originally intended and devoted to other purposes. Justice Strong remarks (p. 77):-"The law of trusts and the law of charities, closely connected as they are, constitute the protection of our Churches, so far as they hold and enjoy property." He observes again (pp. 86, 95):—“ Church property is regarded by law as devoted to charitable uses." "In this country gifts and settlements for religious uses have always been considered as charities." So, also, Mr. Tyler, in his " American Ecclesiastical Law" (p. 97), after saying that the trustees of a religious society simply have the custody and control of its property, but are in no sense the owners thereof, adds :—

"But should the trustees of a religious society attempt to divert the funds and property of the society from the purposes for which they were contributed by the original donors, a court of equity would intervene to prevent it. For instance, where property is conveyed to a religious corporation or a religious society which afterwards becomes incorporated, to promote the teaching of particular religious doctrines, and the funds are attempted to be diverted to the support of different doctrines, it is the duty of a court of equity, under its general