The Rambler (Volume 11) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: evidence were true, the influence of the priest could not have been very great. The landlord, on the other hand, from the moment the poor old man lay prostrate on his bed, dependent for his support on the almost hourly ministration of nourishing food, had him absolutely in his own power; moreover, by his own confession, he was continually and incessantly urgent with the dying man that he would make a better provision for him in his will; and yet not a syllable of reproach is heard as to any "undue influence" that had been exercised by this man, notwithstanding that his case comes precisely within the definition which we quoted in our last from the great Protestant authority in this matter, Swinborne; " when the testator is under the government of the persuader, and in his danger" (i.e. in peril of his power). " And therefore if the physitian, during the time of sickness, be instant with the testator to give him his goods, the testament is not good; for the law presumeth that the testator did it lest the physitian should forsake him or negligently cure him." This landlord stood in the case of the physician; by "forsaking or negligently curing him," the testator's death would have been accelerated; he acknowledged that he was " instant with the testator to give him his goods," and the testator gave them; yet his influence is not complained of, the legacies left to him are not impeached. Truly, the, moral of the case seems to be this, that according to the standard of ethics recognised by public opinion in a Protestant country, a man may lawfully use any influence on a dying man for the benefit of his own pocket; but that influence exercised for the benefit of a charity is " undue influence," more especially if it has been exercised by a priest. A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE R...