New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-09-12


of my poor soul, and for the benefit Of
the soul of my deceased husband" The
seven children contested the will. Mr..
Eastman had been left with discretion
ary power to pay the money for the
masses to any church he chose. The
attorney for the children appeared before
the surrogate, and opposed the admission
of the will to probate on the following
grounds: That the trustee has too much
discretion; that soul has no standing in
temporal court; that the trust is illegal
not being for the benefit Of any living
human being.
In arguing the case he set forth the
following points The very existence
of the soul after death has never been
proven; that its alleged immortality has
never been sustained by facts; that the
whole subject of hereafter is matter
of pure speculation that the law requires
that trusts should be tor the benefit of
living human beings, and this creates
trust for the benefit of soul which may
possibly be non-existent; further he
raised the question whether the soul, if
immortal, would derive any benefit from
the masses said.
Having seen that the first of these
main points was raised, we sent to our
friend, Mr.. H. FL. Otis, the publisher, of
Buffalo, to watch the case and send us
the final decision, which he has done. 1t
shows that previous to making her will
she devided $1,000 among her children;
that the will directs her executor to cause
masses to be read in some German Cath
olic church; and six of the children OBJ
ject to the probate Of the will; that she
was of sound mind and memory, and the
will was properly made. She directed
that all her debts, doctors bills and fun
eral expenses should be paid and that
the balance should be applied to these
masses. The judge quotes from Chief
Justice Rapallo, Judge Cullen, and 9TH
ers, and then says: ''The intent of the
testator is the rule of construction. The
most sacred duty the court can perform
is to give full force to the intentions of
the deceased. She had right
to appropriate her money as she deemed
reasonable and proper, to offer masses
for the remission of her dead husbands
sins. The direction, Roman Catholic
church in Buffalo, is not indefinite. The
court swept away all the questions con-
cerning the immortality Of the soul with
the remark that it is enough to know
that the testator believed in these things.
This is the most interesting case that
has attracted cur attention since $3.50,
600 was left to the Society for the Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Animals. by a
Frenchman named Louis Bonard, who
had accumulated his money by dealings
with those who believed in the transmit
grafton Of souls, and he left his money to
the society on that account, not knowing
but the souls of brutes might some of
them have been his ancestors when they
were in human form. The point was
raised in court that this was
an absurd superstition, the testator was
presumptively insane, and therefore the
will void. The judge decided that more
millions of the human race believed that
than believed anything otherwise; this
mans association had been such as to
make it plausible that he might have
come to believe IT; that in any case it
was not essentially unreasonable, and
therefore was not an indication that he
was mentally Incompetence make will;
that bis bequest was entirely IN harmony
with his belief on that subject, and log
ical outcome from it. Therefore the
money was paid over to Heury Bergh
and the trustees, and devoted to the uses
of the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals.-New York Chris
tian Advocate (Methodist.)
An Ode to Columbus.
The praises of Columbus,
| We often do rehearse,
Sometimes in prose SO stately,
Sometimes in ringing verse.