and when the Church progresses far enough, it can change this law in
a constitutional way. But it has not yet gone far enough. These men
believe that the Church has never done it, or that it is best. Dr. Flood
said that they must be brought in in the light of progress. I affirm
that Dr. Flood's arguments all point in that direction--they must be
interpreted in the light of progress. When you do that you have got a
despotism. I want to go back to my constituents and say this: I exercise
all the power that our Charter gives me. But at the moment that anything
is proposed, and we put in what the fathers did not have before their
eyes, at that moment I stop and say, Thus far, but no farther. A
despotism is a despotism, whether it is a despotism without restraint,
the Czar with his wife, the Czar without his wife. You will turn this
house into a despotism, and you will find it difficult to defend
Methodism by its peculiar Constitution before the American people.

If you want women in, there is another way to bring them in. Send the
question around as you did for lay delegation. There was only a doubt in
the General Conference of 1868, and yet they had a sense of candor. John
M'Clintock fought in favor of taking them in. But he said, "I think it
best to send the question around." True progress is not gained in any
other way. Some prefer a shorter cut. Let me say to you, "He that cometh
in by the door," the same hath a right to come in; but he that cometh in
another way, is not as respectable as in the other case.




ADDRESS OF REV. DR. A.B. LEONARD.