SPIRO T. AGNEW, Governor                 1367

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, convey-
ances 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 incorporation, or otherwise that any
church or congregation heretofore made and adopted a good and
sufficient agreement, plan or certificate of incorporation, 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 presumed in all courts of this State that the said agree-
ment, 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 agree-
ment, 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
incorporation cannot be found, then such record in said clerk's of-
fice 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 corpor-
ration. [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,
within the time prescribed by said law, and if such agreement, plan
or certificate of incorporation hath never been since filed for record
nor a record been made in said clerk's office of said agreement, plan
or certificate of incorporation, from said record book of said corpora-
tion as aforesaid, such church or congregation shall have all of the
benefits of this section, if such agreement, plan or certificate of in-
corporation shall be duly filed for record in the proper clerk's office,
within one year from April 11, 1912, or a record be made within said
time in said clerk's office of said agreement, plan or certificate of in-
corporation from said record book of said corporation, as aforesaid.]

269. Department to receive and record plans, certificates of
incorporation, etc., and fees therefor.

(1) In general.—Upon delivery for record to the [State Tax
Commission] Department of any plan, agreement, regulation, certifi-
cate of incorporation, or articles of amendment [, together with a
copy thereof,] in accordance with applicable provisions of this sub-
title, and upon the payment, and not before, of a recording fee of ten
dollars ($10), the [State Tax Commission] Department shall receive