10 Pa. 23 | Pa. | 1848
The complainants filed their bill to have certain papers and property delivered to them, under the will of Nathan Sheppard, who, having given certain legacies, directed the residue of his estate to “go and be applied, under the direction of the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia for the Northern District, as a fund for the distribution of good books among poor people in the back part of Pennsylvania; OR, to the support of a free-sehool, or institution, in or near Philadelphia.” The respondents insisted before the Common Pleas, as they insist here, that the bequest is void for uncertainty both as to the trustees and the objects of the charity.
As to the first, it is clear that since the statute of charitable uses, whose essential provisions have been assumed here as a part of our law, as they must have been had that statute never been enacted, the objection would not prevail in a similar case in England. There the Chancellor supplies all that is necessary to give
Nor is the objection for uncertainty as to the object, better founded. The doctrine was fully discussed in Moggridge v. Thackwell, 7 Ves. 36, and Mills v. Farmer, 1 Meriv. 54, both of them cases which are apposite to the present. . In the first of them, the trustee was desired to dispose of the residue in such charities as he should think fit, recommending poor clergymen with large families and good characters, and the bequest was established. Yet the object of it was at least as indefinite as either of the objects of the present bequest — the distribution of good books among poor people in the back part of Pennsylvania, or the support of a free-school- or institution in or near Philadelphia. In the second, the testator directed the residue of his estate to be divided for promoting the gospel in foreign parts and in England, and for bringing up ministers in different seminaries, and for other charitable purposes: and Lord Eldon, reversing the decree of the Master of the Rolls, established the bequest and directed it to be carried into effect. After these two decisions by that eminent Chancellor, who, in the Attorney General v. Stepney, 10 Ves. 22, openly set his face against all religious charities that were not subservient to the religious views of the established church — a consideration that has no influence here — there is little to be said. The influence of the church establishment was, doubtless,, felt in Browne v. Yeale, a case very faintly praised even by Lord Eldon, and in which Lord Thurlow seemed to think that no books have a tendency to promote the interests of virtue and religion, and the happiness of mankind, but such as are not of a sectarian character. In Pennsylvania, such a bequest would not be the less charitable, though the books were scientific. Whenever a general, but vague purpose of charity is disclosed, an English Chancellor upholds the bequest, but applies the fund to a charity of the same kind if the meaning of the testator can be discovered; if it cannot, then according to a scheme of application reported by a master; - and the worst that could
Decree affirmed.