CORPORATIONS 911

An. Code, 1924, sec. 290. 1912, sec. 355. 1910, ch. 756 (p. 83). 1912, ch. 218.

291. If any church or congregation organized or incorporated as a
religious corporation since the year eighteen hundred under any law of
this State hath failed or omitted within the time prescribed by said law
to file in the proper office for record the agreement, plan or certificate of
incorporation adopted by the said church or congregation and if the said
agreement, plan or certificate of incorporation hath heretofore, though
after the time prescribed by said law, been filed for record in the proper
office, then, in such case, the said agreement, plan or certificate of incor-
poration having been so filed for record shall be effective for creating and
making the said church or congregation a proper and lawful religious body
corporate, and the same is hereby made a religious body corporate, at, from
and after the date of the said agreement, plan or certificate of incorpora-
tion, in all respects, and to all intents and purposes, as if the said agree-
ment, plan or certificate of incorporation had been duly filed for record
within the time prescribed by such law, and the failure to file the agree-
ment, plan or certificate of incorporation shall in no wise affect the validity
or effect of the said church or congregation as a valid and lawful religious
body corporate, and all the proceedings, acts and transactions carried on,
done and performed in the name or under the authority of such agreement,
plan or certificate of incorporation, including the choice and election of
trustees, in all respects, and to all intents and purposes shall be as valid and
binding as if the said agreement, plan or certificate of incorporation had
been duly filed for record, and in proper time, and all deeds, conveyances
and transfers of property, in trust for the benefit of any such church or
congregation, and all deeds, conveyances and transfers made and executed
to others by or in the name of such church or congregation, as a religious
corporation, shall be good, valid and effective to all intents and purposes,
as if the agreement, plan or certificate of incorporation for such church
and congregation had been duly filed in the proper office, for record, within
the time prescribed by the law under which such church or congregation
was organized and incorporated as aforesaid. And if it shall appear from
the record book required to be kept by any such religious corporation
wherein it is required to register its plan, agreement or certificate of incor-
poration, or otherwise that any church or congregation heretofore made
and adopted a good and sufficient agreement, plan or certificate of incor-
poration, and, in the clerk's office, where the same should have been of
record, no book for recording such instruments is to be found covering the
time in which said agreement, plan or certificate of incorporation should
have been filed for record, then in such case it shall be conclusively pre-
sumed in all Courts of this State that the said agreement, plan or certificate
of incorporation was duly and in due time filed for record in the said clerk's
office, and that the book containing the record of the same has been lost or
destroyed, and such agreement, plan or certificate of incorporation shall
be again filed for record in said clerk's office, unless it has heretofore already
been filed, or if the original of such plan, agreement or certificate of incor-
poration cannot be found, then such record in said clerk's office may be
made from the aforesaid record book of such religious corporation unless
said record has heretofore already been made in said clerk's office from said
record book of such religious corporation. If any church or congregation,
organized or incorporated as a religious corporation since the year eighteen
hundred under any law of this State, hath failed or omitted to file in the
proper clerk's office its agreement, plan or certificate of incorporation,