RELEVANT EVIDENCE. That which is applicable to the issue and which ought to be received; the phrase is used in opposition1 to irrelevant2 evidence, which is that which is not so applicable, and which must be rejected. Vide Relevancy.
RELICT. A widow; as A B, relict of C D.
RELICTA VFRIFICATIONE. When a judgment3 is confessed by cognovit actionem after plea pleaded, and then the plea is withdrawn4, it is called a confession5 or cognovit actionem relicta verificatione. He acknowledges the action having abandoned his plea. See 5 Halst. 332.
RELICTION. An increase of the land by the sudden retreat of the sea or a river.
2. Relicted lands arising from the sea and in navigable rivers, (q. v.) generally belong to the state and all relicted lands of unnavigable rivers generally belong to the proprietor6 of the estate to which such rivers act as boundaries. Schultes on Aqu. Rights, 138; Ang. on Tide Wat. 75. But this reliction must be from the sea in its usual state for if it should inundate7 the land and then recede8, this would be no reliction. Harg. Tr. 15. Vide Ang. on Wat. Co. 220. 3. Reliction differs from avulsion, (q. v.) and from alluvion. (q. v.)
RELIEF, Engl. law. A relief was an incident to every feudal9 tenure10, by way of fine or composition with the lord for taking up the estate which was lapsed11 or fallen in by the death of the last tenant12. At one time the amount was arbitrary; but afterwards the relief of a knight's fee became fixed13 at one hundred shillings. 2 Bl. Com. 65.
RELIEF, practice. That assistance which a court of chancery will lend to a party to annul14 a contract tinctured with fraud, or where there has been a mistake or accident; courts of equity15 grant relief to all parties in cases where they have rights, ex aequo et bono, and modify and fashion that relief according to circumstances.
RELIGION. Real piety16 in practice, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow men.
2. There are many actions which cannot be regulated by human laws, and many duties are imposed by religion calculated to promote the happiness of society. Besides, there is an infinite number of actions, which though punishable by society, may be concealed17 from men, and which the magistrate18 cannot punish. In these cases men are restrained by the knowledge that nothing can be hidden from the eyes of a sovereign intelligent Being; that the soul never dies, that there is a state of future rewards and punishments; in fact that the most secret crimes will be punished. True religion then offers succors19 to the feeble, consolations20 to the unfortunate, and fills the wicked with dread21.
3. What Montesquieu says of a prince, applies equally to an individual. "A prince," says he, " who loves religion, is a lion, which yields to the hand that caresses22 him, or to the voice which renders him tame. He who fears religion and bates it, is like a wild beast, which gnaws23, the chain which re-strains it from falling on those within its reach. He who has no religion is like a terrible animal which feels no liberty except when it devours24 its vic- tims or tears them in pieces." Esp. des , Lois, liv. 24, c. 1.
4. But religion can be useful to man only when it is pure. The constitution of the United States has, therefore, wisely provided that it should never be united with the state. Art. 6, 3. Vide Christianity; Religious test; Theo- cracy.
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