did not comply with all these instructions, were bound to give back the lot, and the building upon it, to Mrs. Eddy and to her heirs forever. A Mother Church thus constructed would have great possibilities.
But here an objection arose. A corporation must be formed, and when Mrs. Eddy asked the State to grant her a new charter for a new church body, the Commissioner of Corporations refused. His reason was that the original charter, granted in 1879, had never been annulled and was still in force. But Mrs. Eddy had no intention of recognising the old church or its charter; if her new directors merely held the property in trust for a church organisation, her end would be defeated. As the deed of trust read, the directors were virtually to hold the property in trust for Mrs. Eddy herself, to the end of executing her wishes. There must be a way, Mrs. Eddy insisted, in which her trustees could hold the property without recognising the existence of the chartered church body, so she set her lawyers to work. "Guided by Divine Love," she said, her attorneys found in the laws of Massachusetts a statute whereby a body of donees might be considered a corporate body for the purpose of taking and holding grants and donations without the formal organisation of a church.[1] This old statute once unearthed, Mrs. Eddy's plan was entirely worked out: the Mother Church was now controlled absolutely by her four directors; the corporation consisted of her directors and
- ↑ In Section 1, Chapter 39, of the Massachusetts Public Statutes, it is provided that:
"The deacons, church wardens, or other similar officers of Church or religious societies, and the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal churches appointed according to the discipline and usages thereof, shall, if citizens of this Commonwealth, be deemed bodies corporate for the purpose of taking and holding In succession all grants and donations, whether of real or personal estate, made either to them or their successors, or to their respective churches, or to the poor of their churches."
