as distinct from other members of the society, or for the use of a portion of the corporators, to the exclusion of others. Nor can they take a trust limited to the support of a particular faith or a particular class of doctrines. It would not be compatible with the office and duties of the trustees, that they should take and hold and administer the revenues of property from the benefits of which a portion of the corporators must be excluded. This would prove an enteringwedge of division, the force of which even christian charity and forbearance would scarcely be able to resist. Besides, such a trust is not authorized by the statute, and is inconsistent with its general scope and object as well as with its terms. (Robertson v. Bullions, 11 N. Y. Rep. 243.)

§ 250. When a religious society is organized as a branch or part of an established denomination, and becomes endowed with property given upon the faith of its being so, the trustees at a given time will not be permitted to employ such property in maintaining doctrine and discipline at variance with that of the denomination, even though they might be sustained by a majority of the corporators; and in such a case the intention of the donors is the criterion by which to determine the purposes to which the property of the church has been dedicated. (The People v. Steele, 2 Barb. 397.)

§ 251. A religious corporation may accept a legacy charged with the payment of its income to a third person for life, and may execute the trust. It may also take property by devise, partly for its own use, and partly for the use of others; and the power to hold the property for its own use carries with it the power to execute that part of the trust which relates to others. (Matter of 'Howe, 1 Paige, 214.)

§ 252. No person having a husband, wife, child or parent can, by his last will and testament, devise or bequeath to

any religious society or corporation, in trust or otherwise, more than one-half part of his or her estate, after the payment of his or her debts, although a devise to the contrary would be valid to the extent of one-half, and no more. This restriction, like the one in another case hereinbefore referred to, was made in order to "guard against improvident testamentary disposition of property by persons in extremis, in derogation of the claims of near relatives." (Laws of 1860, Ch. 360, Sec. 1.)

CHAPTER XIX.

RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES IN NEW YORK-INVENTORY TO BE EXHIBITED BY CERTAIN RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS-CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECT.

§ 253. The treasurer, or the trustees or persons entrusted with the care and management of the temporalities of any religious corporation in the cities of New York, Albany and Schenectady, the annual income of whose property shall exceed six thousand dollars, must, between the first day of January and the first day of April, tri-ennially, exhibit on oath to one of the justices of the supreme court, or any of the judges of the court of common pleas, or the county judge of the county in which such religious corporations are respectively situated, an account and inventory of all the estate, both real and personal, belonging, at the time of making such oath, to the church, congregation or society for which they respectively are trustees or managers, together with an account of the annual revenue arising therefrom. (Laws of 1813, Ch. 60, Sec. 10; Laws of 1850, Ch. 122, Sec. 1; 3 Stat. at Large, 693 and 702.)

§ 254. In every case where a church or religious society has once exhibited the account and inventory required and specified, it will not be necessary for such church or religious society again to exhibit any account and inventory, unless the church or society subsequently to such exhibition shall have purchased or acquired additional lands, tenements or hereditaments within the State. (Laws of 1814, Ch. 1, Sec. 6; 3 Stat. at Large, 695.

§ 255. If any land purchased or acquired by a religious society for the purpose of a burial place or cemetery, and other purposes connected therewith, shall be subsequently appropriated or applied to any use or purpose other than as above specified, it is declared by statute that every such religious society which shall so otherwise appropriate or apply the same, or suffer it to be so otherwise appropriated or applied, shall thenceforth be subject to the provisions of law requiring the exhibition of the account and inventory hereinbefore referred to. (Laws of 1842, Chap. 153, Sec. 2; 3 Stat. at Large, 701.)

§ 256. When it shall appear from the account and inventory, hereinbefore specified and referred to, that the annual revenue of any church, congregation or religious society exceed the sum by virtue of any charter or law they may or can respectively hold and enjoy, the judge before whom the same shall be so exhibited is required to report such fact, together with such account and inventory, to the legislature of the State at their next meeting. (Laws of 1813, Ch. 60, Sec. 10; 3 Stat. at Large, 694.)

§ 257. If any religious society required to exhibit the account and inventory specified and required by law, shall neglect to exhibit the same for the space of six years after the expiration of the time in which the same should have

been exhibited, and shall not then exhibit the same, and procure a certificate to be indorsed thereon by the justice of the Supreme Court, or judge of the proper county, that he is satisfied that the annual revenue arising from the real and personal estate of such corporation does not, nor has not for the six preceding years, exceeded the sum which, by law, such religious society is allowed to receive, then such religious society will cease to be a body corporate. (Ib.)

CHAPTER XX.

RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES IN NEW YORK-THE PEWS OF A RELIGIOUS SOCIETY-RIGHTS OF PEW-HOLDERS-THEIR INTEREST IN THE PEWS.

§ 258. A pew in a church in the State of New York is an incorporeal hereditament, and something more than an easement. It is not land, but is connected with the realty and relates to it. The right of the pew-holder is not real estate, because it extends only to the use of the pew for the purpose of sitting therein during divine service. This is an incorporeal right, but it is one springing out of the land, and in this respect it has some of the qualities of realty. It is such an incorporeal hereditament as that in case of the death of the owner intestate, passes to the heir-at-law, and not to the personal representatives. In some of the States a pew is real estate by statute, and in others it is personal property, but in the State of New York the common law doctrine prevails, and, accordingly, it is regarded as an incorporeal hereditament. (3 Kent's Com. 488; McNabb v. Pond, 4 Brad. 7.)

§ 259. No order of a judge is necessary to enable the trustees of a religious society to sell the pews of the church, on account of the qualified right which the sale passes. It is not a sale of real estate, though the interest acquired is an interest in real estate, and requires a conveyance in writing to pass a good and valid title. The trustees have no power to execute an absolute deed of a pew in fee, without the reservation of any rent, and their agreement to execute such a deed at a future day would be void. A promissory note given for the purchase money of a pew upon such an agreement could not be collected of the maker, on account of a total failure of consideration. But a provision in an agreement to pay money for the erection of a church that the slips shall be sold at auction, to the highest bidder, upon the completion of the house, and that moneys subscribed may be applied in payment of bids, is not inoperative, so as to render the subscriptions void. The provision for a sale would be construed as meaning such a sale as the trustees are authorized by law to make, that is to say, a demise and lease of the slips. (Freligh v. Platt, 5 Cow. 494; First Presbyterian Church of Ithaca v. Bigelow, 16 Wend. 28; Viele v. Osgood, 8 Barb. 130; M. E. Union Church v. Pickett, 23 Barb. 436.)

§ 260. A pew-holder acquires only a limited usufructuary interest, subject to the general right of the society. He has no title to the edifice or freehold, but a mere right of occupancy during divine worship. He has, however, the exclusive right to the possession and enjoyment of the pew for the purposes of public worship, by virtue of an individual right of property, derived, in theory at least, from the corporation represented by the trustees, who are scized and possessed of the temporalities of the church. The pewowners hold and possess their seats in severalty, in subordination to the more general right of the trustees in the soil