CHARITABLE USES, CHARITIES. Gifts to general public uses, may extend to the rich as well as the poor. Camden, Ld. Ch. in Ambl. 651; adopted by Kent, Ch., Coggeshall v. Pelton, 7 Johns. Ch. (N. Y.) 2,94, 11 Am. Dec. 471; Lyndhurst, Ld. Ch., in 1 Ph. Ch. 191; and U. S. Supreme Court in Perth v. Carey, 24 How. (U. S.) 506, 16 L. Ed. 701; BiSp. Eq. § 124; Franklin v. Armfield, 2 Sneed (Tenn.) 305.
Gifts to such purposes as are enumerated in the act 43 Eliz. c. 4, or which, by anal ogy, are deemed within its spirit or intend ment. Boyle, Char. 17.
Such a gift was defined by Mr. Binney to be "whatever is given for the love of God or for the love of your neighbor, in the catholic and universal sense—given from these motives, and to these ends—free from the stain or taint of every consideration that is personal, private, or selfish." Vidal v. Girard, 2 How. (U. S.) 128, 11 L. Ed.' 205; approved in Price v. Maxwell, 28 Pa. 35, and Ould v. Hospital, 95 U. S. 24 L. Ed. 450.
Lord MacNaghten said in [1891] A. C. 531: Charity in its legal sense comprises four principal divisions : trusts for the relief of poverty, trusts for the advancement of edu cation, trusts for the advancement of relig ion, and trusts for other purposes beneficial to the community not falling under any of the preceding heads.
They had their origin under the Christian dispen sation, and were regulated by the Justinian Code. Code Just. 1. 3, De Episc. et Cler.; Domat, b, 2, t 2, § 6, 1, b. 4, t. 2, § 6, 2; 1 Eq. Cas. Abr. 96; Mr. Bin ney's argument on the Girard will, p. 40; Chaste] on the Charity of the Primitive Churches, b. 1, c. 2, b. 2, c. 10; Codex, donationem piarum, passim. Under that system, donations for pious uses which had not a regular and determined destination were liable to be adjudged invalid, until the edicts of Valentinian III. and Marcian declared that legacies in favor of the poor should be maintained even if legatees were not designated. Justinian completed the work by sweeping all such general gifts into the coffers of the church, to be administered by the bishops. The doctrine of pious uses seems to have passed directly from the civil law into the law of England ; Inglis v. Sailor's Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. (U. S.) 100, 139, 7 L. Ed. 617 ; Howe, Studies in the Civil Law 68. It would seem that, by the English
rule before the statute, general and indefinite trusts for charity, especially if no were provided, were invalid. If sustainable, it was under the king's prerogative, exercising in that respect a power analogous to that of the ordinary in the disposition of bona vacantia prior to the Statute of Distribu tions; F. Moore 882, 890; Duke, Char. Uses 72, 362; 1 Vern. 224, note; 1 Eq. Cas. Abr. 96, pl. 8; 1 Ves. Sen. 225 ; Hob. 136 ; Chittenden v. Chittenden, 1 Am. L. Reg. 545. The main purpose of the stat. 43 Elie.
c. 4 was to define the uses which were charitable, as contradistinguished from those which, after the Reformation In England, were deemed superstitious, and to secure their application; Shelf. Mortm. 89, 103. The objects enumerated in the statute were, "Relief of aged, impotent and poor people; mainte nance of sick and maimed soldiers and mariners, schools of learning, free schools and scholars in universities ; repairs of bridges, ports, havens, causeways, churches, seabanks and highways; edu cation and preferment of orphans, relief, stock or maintenance for houses of correction; marriage of poor maids ; supportatlon, aid and help of young tradesmen, handicraftsmen and persons decayed; relief or redemption of prisoners or captives; aid or ease of any poor inhabitants concerning payments of fifteens, setting out of soldiers, and other taxes." Subsequently it appears that this statute, as a mode of proceeding, fell Into disuse, although un der Its influence and by Its mere operation many charities were upheld which would otherwise have been void ; Shelf. Mortm. 378, 379, and notes ; Galls go's Ex'rs v. Attorney General 3 Leigh (Va.) 470, 24 Am. Dec. 650; Nelson, Lex Test. 137; Boyle, Char. 18 et seq. ; 1 Burn, Eccl. Law, 317 a. Under this statute, courts of chancery are empowered to ap point commissioners to superintend the application and enforcement of charities ; and if, from any cause, the charity cannot be applied precisely as the testator has declared, such courts exercise the pow er in some cases of appropriating it, according to the principles Indicated In the devise, as near Be they can to the purpose expressed. And this le called an application cy pres; 3 Washb. R. P. 614. I See CY PRES.