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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Legacies (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-11) |
 | | In its most restricted sense, by a pious legacy or bequest (legatum pium) is understood, the assigning, by a last will, of a particular thing forming part of an estate, to a church or an ecclesiastical institution. |
 | | Those, finally, who, owing to daily cares and anxieties, found it impossible to be bountiful during life, may yet, if only at the hour of death, cooperate in the relief of the unfortunate, and assure their neighbour the spiritual advantages of Divine service. |
 | | The charity of the first Christians led them to despoil themselves while alive of their superfluous goods; consequently, mention is rarely made of pious legacies before the time of Constantine. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/09115a.htm (3300 words) |
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