if it were not for their contributions, we would not to-day be shouting
over the "Million dollars for Missions." They pray and testify in our
class-meetings and prayer-meetings, and but for their presence among
us, many of those meetings would be as silent as the grave. They are
amenable to law, and must be tried by the very same process by which men
are tried. They are subject to the same penalty. They may be suspended;
they may be expelled. In all these respects they have been regarded as
laymen from the beginning. Indeed, we have never recognized more than
two orders in our Church. We have laymen and ministers. Up to 1872 but
one of these orders was represented in this General Conference. This
General Conference was strictly a clerical organization. But in 1872 we
marked a new epoch in Methodist history, and a new element came into
this body, and has been in all our sessions since that date. The first
step, as has been mentioned here before, was taken in 1868, when the
question of lay delegation was sent down to the members of the Church
over twenty-one years of age, and to the Annual Conferences. Dr. Queal,
if I understood him, made what is, in my judgment, a fatal concession on
this question. He distinctly stated, if I understood him correctly,
and I have not had time to refer to the report of his speech (if I
misinterpret him he will correct me), that when the motion to strike
out the word "male" was made, it was done for the purpose of putting a
"rider" on the motion and cause its defeat, and when that fact was made
known to those in favor of lay delegation, they said they would accept
it then with that interpretation, and the interpretation was that the
amendment would let women into the General Conference.

Now, that being true, all this talk about the idea of the "women coming
in" being never entertained until very recently falls to the ground. It
was present on that occasion. It was understood by those that opposed
lay delegation, and that favored it, that if they passed this amendment