ing masses for the repose of his soul, but the bequest was held void for the reason that under the Pennsylvania statute a bequest for religious uses was invalid unless the will was made at least one month before testator's death, it appearing that the will was made within that time. Rhymer's Appeal, 93 Pa. St. 142. Transfer Tax. A bequest to a pastor and to his successors, to be used in saying low masses for the repose of the soul of the testatrix and others, was held subject to taxation under the transfer tax act. Matter of McAvoy, 112 App. Div. (N. Y.) 377. A bequest to a Roman Catholic priest, to be applied to masses to be celebrated publicly in a specified Roman Catholic church in Ireland for the repose of the testator's soul and the soul of his wife, is a valid charitable bequest, and exempt from legacy duty under the 38th section of 5 & 6 Vict. c. 82. Attorney-General v Hall, 2 Irish Re. 291 (1896). See additional cases on this subject cited in the note to Festorazzi v St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church (104 Ala. 327) in 25 L. R. A. 360, and also in a note to Hadley v Forsee, (203 Mo. 418) in 16 L. R. A. (N. S.) 96. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Historical sketch, 481. Description, 482. Government, form of, 482. Association with Congregational churches, 483. Center College, Danville, Kentucky, 483. Congregation, authority, 484. Consolidation, 484. Division of society, apportionment of property, 484. Excommunication by General Assembly, 486. Free Portuguese Church, 487. Foreign Missionary Society, 488. General Assembly, Southern, 488. General Assembly, described, Old School, 489. General Assembly, division, effect on legacy, 489. General Assembly organized, 490. General Assembly, status, 490. General Assembly, when decisions binding on church, 490. Illinois Orphans' Home, 491. Independent Church not possible, 491. Joint ownership, 492. Local society, status, 492. Mercer Home for disabled clergymen of the Presbyterian faith, 493. Minister, character of office, 493. Minister, how called, 494. Minister, Presbytery's power of appointment, 495. Missionary house of rest, 496. Missions, 496. Old and New School; division of 1838, 497. Old School Assembly, claims bequest, 498. Old School, General Assembly, political deliverances, 498. Organization, 499. Organization and form of government, 499. Pastor, terminating relation, 500. Pennsylvania, English congregation, 500. Political deliverances, no effect on local property, 501. Presbytery of New York, powers, 502. Presbytery, relation to synod, 503. Property, how held and managed, 503. Publication committee, 504. Ruling elders, election, synod's power limited, 504. Scotland, 505. Secession of 1838, 505. Secession, effect on pastoral relation, 507. Session, 508. Session, powers, 509. Slavery agitation, 510. Sovereignty, not in membership, 511. Synod of secession church, 512. Synod powers, 513. Trustees, 513. Unconstitutional deliverance on political questions, 513. Historical Sketch. The Presbyterian Church in the United States, unlike the mother church in Scotland, has not at any time been connected with the civil government; and in this and some other particulars it differed from the mother church in the principles and arrangement of its government before the adoption of its constitution in 1788. At that time the Synod of New York and Philadelphia was the highest tribunal in the church. It adopted the constitution, and by it the General Assembly was created and established as the highest judicatory of the church. The constitution defines and prescribes the powers of a gradation of courts or bodies, in which the spiritual government of the church is vested, consisting of— First. The session, composed of the pastor' or pastors and ruling elders of a particular congregation. Second. A presbytery, consisting of all the ministers and one ruling elder from each congregation within a certain district. Third. A synod, composed in like manner as a presbytery of ministers and elders within a larger district, including at least three presbyteries. Fourth. The General Assembly, consisting of delegations from the various presbyteries. It is not controverted that each of these bodies above the session may, in the exercise of an appellate or revisory jurisdiction, review and affirm or reverse the judgments of the one next below it, and that, by a series of appeals, the decisions of a session may ultimately be carried before the General Assembly. Watson v Avery, 2 Bush. (Ky.) 332. Description. The Presbyterians have a distinct directory of church government and discipline set forth in the same volume with their confession of faith, but separate and distinct from it. They usually worship by themselves, and form a distinct society from the other sects. The Presby terians are as old as the Reformation. With the Lutherans they separated from the Church of Rome, but they soon separated from each other. The Lutherans established the Episcopal form of church government. The disciples of Calvin established the Presbyterian, and it has existed ever since on the continent. It was afterward established in Scotland, and carried by the Scotch who immigrated in great numbers to Ireland, and planted there. It was brought both from Scotland and Ireland to this country, and churches have been formed here on the model of the church of Scotland, and professing to be governed by the same directory. Each society or parish has its session; a number of parishes form a presbytery; and larger divisions a synod; and the whole are united under a General Assembly. Churches, or societies, are not independent of each other, but connected and dependent. Muzzy v Wilkins, Smith's N. H. Rep. 1. Government, Form of. The government of the Presbyterian Church is republican in form, and the elders are simply the representatives of the people, to be chosen by them in the mode most approved, and in use in that congregation. Every Presbyterian church is a law unto itself in the election of elders and deacons, limited only to the qualification of the persons elected, who must be male members in full communion. Dayton v Carter, 206 Pa. St. 491. Association with Congregational Churches. In 1801 the General Assembly adopted what was known as a Plan of Union for New Settlements. The avowed object of it was to prevent alienation; in other words, the affiliation of Presbyterians in other churches by suffering those who were yet too few and too poor for the maintenance of a minister, temporarily to call to their assistance the members of a sect who differed from them in principles, not of faith, but of ecclesiastical government. To that end, Presbyterian ministers were suffered to preach to Congregational churches, while Presbyterian churches were suffered to settle Congregational ministers; and mixed congregations were allowed to settle a Presbyterian or a Congregational minister at their election, but under a plan of government and discipline adapted to the circumstances. It was obviously a missionary arrangement from the first, and they who built up presbyteries and synods on the basis of it had no reason to expect that their structures would survive it, or that Congregationalists might, by force of it, gain a foothold in the Presbyterian Church despite of Presbyterial discipline. They embraced it with all its defeasible properties plainly put before them; and the power which constituted it might fairly repeal it, and dissolve the bodies that had grown out of it, whenever the good of the church should seem to require it. The General Assembly manifestly designed that local societies so made up in part of Presbyterians and Congregationalists should belong to some presbytery as an integrant part of it. And a delegate from such local church. to the Presbytery was given the same right to sit and act in the presbytery as if he had been a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church. Commonwealth v Green, 4 Whart. (Pa.) 531. Center College, Danville, Kentucky. The trustees of the college made a contract with the Kentucky Synod providing that whenever the synod should pay or cause to be paid to the |