72 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. quirements. It was an inheritance from the Roman law,^ undoubt- edly entering into England, as other parts of the Roman law did, through the Church (or rather through churchmen), but not from what we may call its religiously charitable side. As is well known, under the code of Justinian full provision was made for the enforce- ment of charitable duties, not only by the bishop, but on the com- plaint of any citizen as representing the public exactly as the Attorney-General now represents them ; and that perpetuities and the application of r^ /"/r^ 2 were allowed; and as this code came into England through the civilians the public duty stood side by side with the moral and religious as a proper charitable work, which the Church would regard as such. The limits of this article are too narrow to permit us to trace in any just degree the growth of these two elements of the law of charities as administered by the Church. Suffice it to say that the alms-giving which in the first ages of Christianity had been the natural expression of its spirit and its habitual practice was, we might say, constantly stated by the Fathers as a just ground in the sight of Heaven for its pardon of our trespasses. "After baptism," says Cyprian, " we would have no resource to expiate our continual faults, if the divine compassion had not taught us works of justice and pity as a way of safety, and alms as a means of washing out the stains of our vices." Said Clement of Alexandria : " As many poor as are relieved, so many advocates for you before the Sovereign Judge." And Chrysostom : " Whatever may be thy sins, fear not; thy alms outweigh them all in the balance of the Judge." As this voluntary alms-giving was organized under direction of the Church into an established system of charity, the objects of public duty inculcated, protected, and enforced under the Roman law fell, as we have said, also under its control. All was fish that came to the net of the successor of Saint Peter; and having dis- posal of the merits of Christ and the saints, upon which he, as the head of the Church, could draw as upon a bank,^ the view rapidly prevailed that a remission of sins and exemption from their con- sequences was worked not only by acts of observance towards the Church, but of charity towards men. It is certainly true that 1 Pandects, Lib. 30, Tit. i, §§ 117, 122; Lib. 32, Tit. 2, § 5 ; Lib. 33, Tit. i, § 6. 2 Dig. Lib. 33, Tit. 2, § 17 ; even in its prerogative form, Lib. 50, Tit. 5, § 4; Wil- mot's Notes, i. 33; Jackson v. Phillips, 14 Allen, 539, 575. 8 Clement VI.; Migne, Nouv. Encyc. Theol. xxvii. 123, 124; Southey, Book of the Church, 1. 310.
