ON MAKING A WILL

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1789, 31 July 1926, Page 7

ON MAKING A WILL

• EVERY MAX’S DUTY. “ In the Order ter the Visitation of the Sick in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England instructions are given to the minister .■ls to the various exhortations to the sick person with regard to his spiritual affairs. The rubric following with regard .to his temporal affairs draws attention to a matter which, though many ministers may think it a presumption to make such an inquiry, is often of the gravest importance,” isays a writer in 'the Record of the United Free Church. “ ‘ And he that hath not before disposed of his good,s, let him then be admonished to make his will, and to declare .his debts, what he oweth, and what is owing to him; for the better discharging of his conscience, and the quietness of his executors. But men should often be put in remembrance to take order for the settling of their temporal estates, whilst they are in health.’

“ The remembrance of a fragrant •life 1 , full of good and kindly deeds, has often been spoiled by the irreparable omission to make a will. One knows such caises as these—a widow turned out of a home built up largely by her industry; a farm round which happy memories cling passing from a family into the hands of a distant heir; a prosperous business ruined and the employees turned adrift—all on account of a man’s neglect, his last sin of omission. There is no more fertile source of family .diispeace than an intestate succession.

“ One has known good Christian menand women to fight like tigers over some trifling personal belongings that ought to have been left to one of them by a will; maiden sisteds have been left in poverty, to earn their own living, while sisters, married and provided for, having carried off that which would have kept their les s fortunate sisters in comfort; young children deprived of home and parents have been left to the tender mercies of strangers.

“ A death-bed will is often van unsatisfactory will. It is probably prepared hurriedly, and with little consideration. anti the rubric referred to is therefore wise in urging that ‘ men .should often be put in remembrance to take order for the settling of their temporal estates, whilst they are in health.’ In all cases legal assistance should he sought, even for the simplest of wills.

“ The home-made will and the printed will form are sometimes worse than no will at all. In many cases they are .an expensive economy. They no doubt save a lawyer’s fee at the time hut they often cost many times the fee before they can be put into operation. There is an old saying that a man who is his own lawyer has a fool foi his client—a saying which applies as much to lawyers themselves as to the rest of mankind, for even eminent judges who have written their own wills have sometimes made a mess of them.

“'Finally, the place for a man’s will is in 'the safe in hi s lawyer’s office. A man has been known to put his will so safely away that careful seaich has not revealed its hiding place, until, perhaps, years afterwards, when it is found in the family Bible; and cases are not unknown where a malevolent person, finding a will in a deceased’s repositories, has put it in the fire. These and other reasons make it evident that a man should not retain bis will in his own possession.”