RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Morris Morton
Chinese for supporting a school for Chinese youth. The school was located at Macao, 1838, and removed to Hongkong in 1842 (see Brown, Samuel Robbins). He was also the author of Horce Sinicoe: Translations from the Popular Literature of the Chinese (London, 1812); A View of China for Philological Purposes, Containing a Sketch of Chinese Chronology, Geography, Government and Customs (1817); Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect (3 parts, Macao, 1828); Memoirs of Rev. William Milne, D.D., Late Missionary to China . Compiled from Documents Written by the Deceased; to which are added Occasional Remarks (Malacca, 1824). Mr. Morrison added to his literary and civil labors private efforts to spread the Gospel, the public proclamation of the Gospel being forbidden. After his death his remains were taken to Macao, where they still rest, the site being marked by an appropriate inscription testifying to his devotion as a missionary and his eminence as a Chinese scholar. Although his dictionary has been superseded by that of Samuel Wells Williams, his name will always have an honorable place beside the names of Martyn, Judson, Carey, Williams, and other workers in the heroic age of modern missions.
Bibliography: Lives are by Mrs. E. Morrison, 2 vols., London, 1839 (by his widow); S. W. Williams, in F. Piper, Lives of Leaders of the Church Universal, ed. H. M. Mc- Cracken, pp. 819-837, Philadelphia, 1879; W. J. Townsend, London, 1888. Consult also W. W. Moseley, The Origin of the First Mission to China, London, 1842; and the literature on missions to China.
MORRISON, THEODORE NEVIN: Protestant Episcopal bishop of Iowa; b. at Ottawa, 111., Feb. 18, 1850. He was graduated from Illinois College, Jacksonville, 111. (A.B., 1870), and the General Theological Seminary (1873). He was ordered deacon in 1873 and was advanced to the priesthood in the following year. He was then rector of St. Paul's, Pekin, 111. (1874-76) and of the Church of the Epiphany, Chicago (1876-99), and in 1899 was consecrated bishop of Iowa.
MORSE, RICHARD CARY: Presbyterian; b. at Hudson, N. Y., Sept. 19, 1841. He was educated at Yale (A.B., 1862), Union Theological Seminary (1865-66; graduated, 1867), and Princeton Theological Seminary (1866-67). After being assistant editor of the New York Observer from 1867 to 1869, he was ordained to the ministry in 1869, and since that year has been general secretary of the international committee of the Y. M. C. A. He has taken an active part in the extension of that organization both in the United States and Canada, and in other parts of the world, and is honorary American secretary of the World's Committee of the Y. M. C. A. He has written Robert M. McBurney, a Memorial (New York, 1899) ; Polity of Young Men's Christian Associations (1904); and Fifty Years of Federation (1905).
MORTMAIN, mert'men": In law, the state of lands and tenements held by perpetual tenure. Since the alienation of church property is forbidden by ecclesiastical canons, and members of ecclesiastical bodies were reckoned as dead persons in law, the phrase mortua manus, " the dead hand," was used to express this aspect of the church as a holder
of property, and the term statutes of mortmain came to signify the secular laws which attempted to impose limitations upon the church's power of acquiring property. Such laws are found as early as the Carolingian period, and numerous civil enactments of the Middle Ages limit the amount of real property which may be held by churches or mon. asteries, largely for the reason that such property was exempted from feudal dues and services. The indifferent success of such legislation may be seen from various statements of the very large proportion of the land which was in ecclesiastical possession. In England the Magna Charta as revised and confirmed by Henry III. forbade the transfer of land to church corporations by a tenant without the consent of his lord. The statute de religiosis of Edward I., enacted in 1279, forbade the acquisition of land by clerics or others in such wise that it should come into mortmain. The aim of this and subsequent laws of the same king was to prevent the impoverishment of the nation by endowments which deprived the State of its due services under the feudal system, and were based on the theory that the national church should share in the nation's burdens. The laws of mortmain were retained in the United States only in Pennsylvania, owing to the fact that there were no great religious corporations, and because the feudal system never existed here. The growing desire to limit the rights and privileges of corporations has led to the enactment of laws in the United States and in other countries which more or less directly affect ecclesiastical bodies. A treatment of them, however, belongs rather to works on law and jurisprudence than to one devoted to religion or theology.
Bibliography: O. D. Tudor, Law of Charities and Mortmain, London, 1889; J. Rawlinson, Notes on the Mortmain Acts, ib. 1877. The statute of 1279 is in Henderson, Documents, pp. 148-149.
MORTON, NATHANIEL: Colonial historian; b. in Leyden, Holland, 1612; d. in Plymouth, Mass., June 28, 1685. He came to America in 1623; became Governor Bradford's assistant at Plymouth in the management of public affairs, and in 1645 was appointed secretary of the Plymouth Colony. He was well read, and noted carefully the facts and events of the early days of the colony; nearly all its records were written by him. He wrote the valued New-England's Memoriall: or a Brief Relation of the most Memorable and Remarkable Passages of the Providence of God, Manifested to the Planters of New-England in America; with Special Reference to the First Colony thereof, Called New-Plymouth, as also a Nomination of Divers of the most Eminent Instruments Deceased, both of Church and Commonwealth, Improved in the First Beginning and Afterprogress of Sundry of the Respective Jurisdictions in those Parts; in Reference unto Sundry Exemplary Passages of their Lives, and the Time of their Death. Published for the Use and Benefit of Present and Future Generations (Cambridge, 1669; 2d ed., Boston, 1721; 6th ed., Boston, 1855). He wrote also in 1680 a Synopsis of the Church History of Plymouth, which appeared in Ebenezer Hazard's Historical Collections and in Alexander Young's Chron-
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