assert freely, here and now, if the women are in under the Restrictive
Rules, no power ought to put them out. If they are not in under the
Restrictive Rules, nothing has been done since, in my judgment, bearing
upon it. I am astounded that these brethren fancy that this question
has no bearing at all on the meaning of that rule. That is a wonderful
thing. But we affirm that when the Church voted to introduce lay
delegation, it not only did not intend to introduce women, but it did
intend to fill up the whole body with men. That is what we affirm. If
we can prove it, it is a tower of help to us. If we cannot prove it, we
cannot make out our case. But our contention is, that the Church did
not undertake to put women in, and it did undertake to fill up the
capacities and relations of the body with men. Now, look at it. No man
goes to the dictionary to find the meaning of the word "layman." There
is not a man that can find out the meaning of our Restrictive Rules from
the dictionary. No living man can make out the meaning of a word in the
Restrictive Rules from Webster's dictionary. You must get it from the
history of the Church. Who is the "General Superintendent" by Webster or
Worcester? The Methodist Episcopacy is the thing that is protected by
the Restrictive Rules. The dictionary does not tell how the Chartered
Fund shall be taken care of. Now they talk about laymen. They do not
seem, I think, to understand the history of the thing. Some of them do
not appear to understand the history of the English language. Why was
the word "layman" ever introduced? Because there was a separate class of
clergy men in the world, but there was not a class of clergywomen in the
world. If there had been, there would have been a term for laywomen and
for clergywomen. And the word was invented to distinguish the laymen
from the _clergy_men. Had there been clergywomen, there would have been
laywomen. The "laity" means all the people, men, women, and children. A
woman is one of the laity, and so is every child in the country or in
the Church one of the laity. But when you speak of man acting as a unit