Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete, Marietta Holley [learn to read books txt] 📗

not indeed with us the question; but never, with our consent, shall the Church of the living God disfranchise her who gave to the world its divine Redeemer. When that disfranchisement comes to the debate, may the God of eternal righteousness give us strength equal to our will to cleave it to the ground!”

The General Conference of 1868, after full discussion, submitted the question of Lay Representation to a vote of all the members of the Church, male and female, thus recognizing the women as laymen, as belonging to the great body of the laity, and as vitally interested in the government of the Church, and having rights under that government. During the debate on the report of the Committee on the plan for submitting the question as in 1861, to the male members, Dr. Sherman moved to strike out the word “male.” While that motion was under consideration, Dr. Slicer, of Baltimore, said, “If it were the last moment I should spend, and the last articulate sound I should utter, I should speak for the wives, mothers, and daughters of the Methodist Episcopal Church.... I am for women's rights, sir, wherever church privileges are concerned.”

Dr. Sherman's motion was carried by a vote of 142 to 70, and the question of lay representation was submitted to all the members of the Church over twenty-one years of age. The General Conference did not ask women to vote on a proposition that only male members of the Church should be represented in the General Conference, and it did not then enter the thought of any clear-headed man that women were to be deprived of their rights to a seat in the General Conference. There were a few noisy, disorderly brethren who cried out from their seats, “No, no,” but they were silenced by the presiding Bishop and the indignation of the right thinking, orderly delegates.

What does the Rev. Dr. David Sherman, the mover of the motion to strike out the word “male,” now say of the prevailing sentiment on that day of great debate? I have his freshly written words in response to an inquiry made a few weeks ago. On March 21st he made this statement:

“Some of us believed that women were laymen, that the term 'men' in the Discipline, as elsewhere, often designated not sex, but genus; and that those who constituted a main part of many of our churches should have a voice in determining under what government they would live. We believed in the rightful equality of the sexes before the law, and hence that women should have the same right as men to vote and hold office. The Conference of 1868 was a reform body, and it seemed possible to take these views on a stage; hence the amendment was offered, and carried with a rush and heartiness even beyond my expectations....The latter interpretation of the Conference making all not members of Conferences laymen, fully carried out these views, as they were understood at the moment by the majority party. Some, to be sure, cried out against it, but their voices were not heard amid the roar of victory. Who can go back of the interpretation of the supreme court of the Church?”

It is amazing that brethren will stand here to-day and utterly ignore the decision of our Supreme Court in defining who are laymen. Could the utterances of any Court be more definite and clear than those of the General Conference when it said, “The General Conference holds that in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word 'laymen' must be understood to include all the members of the Church who are not members of the Annual Conferences”? This decision must include women among the laity of the Church. I know it is said that this means the classification of local preachers. We respond that that only appears from the debate. The General Conference was settling a great principle in which the personal rights and privileges of two thirds of the membership of our Church were involved. Surely, our Supreme Court would have made a strange decision had they, in defining laymen, excepted women. Let us see how it would look in cold type had they said, “The General Conference holds that in all matters connected with the election of lay delegates the word laymen must be understood to include all the members of the Annual Conferences, and who are not women.” We would have become the laughing-stock of Christendom had we made such an utterance. The Church universal in all ages has always divided its membership into two great classes, and two only, the clergy and the laymen, using the terms laity and laymen synonymously and interchangeably. See Bingham's “Antiquities,” Blackstone's “Commentaries,” Schaffs “History,” and kindred authorities. It is sheer trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction between laymen and laywomen.

Women were made class-leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school superintendents, and employed in these several capacities long before the specific interpretations of the pronouns were made. They were so appointed and employed in Saint Paul's Church in this city during the pastorate of that sainted man, John M'Clintock, in 1860, and could the voice of that great leader and lover of the Church reach us to day from the skies it would be in protest against the views presented in this debate by the supporters of the committee's report and its amendment.

It is a well-established and incontrovertible principle of law that any elector is eligible to the office for which said elector votes, unless there be a specific enactment discriminating against the elector. Our law says that a lay delegate shall be twenty-five years of age, and five years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It does not say that a delegate must not be a woman, or must be a man.

Women are eligible to membership in this General Conference. Women have been chosen delegates as provided by law. They are here in their seats ready for any duty on committees, or otherwise, as they may be invited. We cannot turn them out and slam the door on their exit. It would be revolutionary so to do by a simple vote of this body. It would be a violation of the guarantees of personal liberty, a holding of the just rights of the laity of the Church. We cannot exclude them from membership in the General Conference, except by directing the Annual Conferences to vote on the question of their exclusion. Are we ready to send that question in that form down to the Annual Conferences for their action? I trust that a large majority of this General Conference will say with emphasis we are not ready for any such action. The women of our Methodism have a place in the heart of the Church from which they cannot be dislodged. They are our chief working members. They are at the very front of every great movement of the Church at home or abroad. In the spirit of rejoicing consecration our matrons and maids uphold the banner of our Lord in every conflict with the enemy of virtue and righteousness. Looking down upon us from these galleries, tier upon tier, are the magnificent leaders of the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's Home Missionary Societies. Our women are at the front of the battle now waging against the liquor traffic in our fair land, and they will not cease their warfare until this nation shall be redeemed from the curse of the saloon. God bless all these women of our great conquering Church of the Redeemer.

Twenty years ago Bishop Hurst accompanied me on a leisurely tour of continental Europe. In the old city of Nuremberg we wandered among the old churches and market-places, where may be seen the marvellous productions of that evangel of art, Albert Durer. In an old schloss in that city may be found the diary of Albert Durer, almost four centuries old. In it you may read as follows: “Master Gebhart, of Antwerp, has a daughter seventeen years old, and she has illuminated the head of a Saviour for which I gave