1. The persons holding the offices respectively of president, secretary and treasurer of the association, or other chief officers, by whatever name they may be known, shall submit to the circuit court having jurisdiction in the city or county where such association is located, the articles of agreement, with the petition praying for a pro forma decree thereon.

2. If the court shall be of the opinion that such articles of agreement and the purposes of the association come properly within the purview of this chapter, and are not inconsistent with the constitution or laws of the United States, or of this state, the court shall enter of record an order to that effect, a certified copy of which order shall, by the clerk, be endorsed upon or attached to said articles. But no such order shall be made until such petition shall have remained on file in the clerk’s office of said court for at least three days after said petition shall have been presented to the court; and whenever the judge to whom such petition shall have been presented shall entertain any doubt as to the lawfulness or public usefulness of the proposed corporation, it shall be his duty to appoint some competent attorney, as a friend of the court, whose duty it shall be to examine said petition and show cause, if any there be, on some day to be fixed by the court, why the prayer of said petition should not be granted, and said attorney shall not be confined in his examination to said petition and articles of association, but may introduce such testimony as may be available and proper in order to fully disclose the true purposes of the association; and upon the hearing thereof, the court shall make such further order granting or dismissing said petition as to it may seem best, and upon the granting of such petition, the petitioners shall cause the articles of agreement, with the certificate aforesaid, to be recorded in the office of the recorder of deeds of the county in which the association is located, and then filed in the office of the secretary of state.

3. The secretary of state shall issue to the petitioners a certified copy of such articles of agreement, with the several certificates thereon as filed in his office, which certified copy shall be the charter of incorporation; and thereupon the petitioners, their associates and successors, shall be created and be a body corporate and politic, by the corporate name designated in such charter, and such charter, together with this chapter, shall be received in all courts and places as legal evidence of the incorporation of such association.