Article April 5, 1913 Issue

By the special act of the Massachusetts Legislature approved...

Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph

By the special act of the Massachusetts Legislature approved by Governor Foss, the famous Eddy will case has been ended in the complete carrying out of the terms of Mrs. Eddy's bequest to The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, the "Mother Church" of her foundation. As the validity of the will, outside of the narrow issue of the legal competence of the trustees named, had been affirmed by the unanimous decision of the supreme courts of our own state and Massachusetts, the act of the Legislature was simply the legalization of the reasonable preference of the testatrix in the provision of trustees of her own selection instead of a trustee appointed by the Massachusetts supreme court.

The trustees now authorized by the Legislature are the Christian Science Board of Directors in charge of all the spiritual and temporal affairs of The Mother Church, an unincorporated body with many thousand members and many hundred branches, each of which is a separate organization with its own form of government. They are the trustees expected and desired by Mrs. Eddy in bequeathing her valuable real estate in Boston and Newton to The Mother Church in trust to keep in repair the church building and parsonage with authority to devote the balance of the income of the estate and such portion of the principal as may be deemed wise "for the purpose of more effectually promoting and extending the religion of Christian Science as taught by me."

The trustees managing this property during the closing years of the life of Mrs. Eddy were advised by counsel not to make a conveyance to The Mother Church without a court order, in view of an old Massachusetts statute providing that "the income of the gifts, grants, bequests, and devises made to and for the use of any one church shall not exceed two thousand dollars a year." It was undisputed that the income from Mrs. Eddy's real estate greatly exceeded this limitation. The transfer of the property was further embarrassed by the challenging petition of the heirs at law of Mrs. Eddy, her son and adopted son, who sought to have this bequest set aside as invalid on several grounds.

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