Fifth: That to vote is to rule, voting carrying with it all the collaterals of making, expounding, and executing law; that God has withheld from woman the right to rule, either in the church, the state or the family; that He did this because of her having “brought sin and death into the world, and all our woe.”
Sixth: That the Bible is addressed to man and not to woman; that man comes to God through Jesus, and woman comes to Jesus through man; that every privilege the wife enjoys she but receives through the husband, for God has declared that woman shall not rule man, but be subject unto him.
A more explicit statement of the opinion of the church regarding woman is seldom found. Later action of the Methodist body proves its agreement with Rev. Mr. Turnstall. The General Conference of that church convened May 1, 1888, in the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, numbering delegates from every part of the United States as well as many from foreign lands. Among these delegates were sixteen women. The question of their admission came up the first day. The senior bishop, Rev. Thomas Bowman, in his opening remarks, declared that body to stand in the presence of new conditions, in that they found names upon the roll of a class of persons whose eligibility had never been determined by the high tribunal of the church. A committee was appointed to report upon their admission. Bishop Merrill, occupying the chair upon the second day, said that “for the first time in the history of the conference, women had been sent as delegates,” but the bishops did not think the women were eligible. The report of the committee was submitted, which declared that after a serious discussion they had become convinced that, while the rule was passed relating to the admission of lay delegates to the General Conference, the church contemplated admission only to men as lay delegates and that under the constitution and laws, women were not eligible. The committee agreed that the protest against women should be sustained, and the conferences from which they were sent be notified that their seats were vacant. A long discussion ensued. Rev. John Wiley, president of the Drew Theological Seminary of the New York Conference, spoke against woman’s admission, saying:
That if the laws of the church were properly interpreted they would prove that women are not eligible and then, besides, no one wanted them in the General Conference.
Rev. J. R. Day, the New York Conference, argued against the admission of women, saying:
When the law was passed for the admission of lay delegates it was never intended that women should be delegates to the General Conference. It is proposed today to make one of the most stupendous pieces of legislation that has been known to Christendom. I am not opposed to woman doing the work that she is capable of doing but I do not think that she should intrude upon the General Conference. Woman has not the necessary experience; this is a tremendous question.
Rev. Jacob Rothweiler, of the Central German Conference, asserted that:
The opponents of the report are trying to override the constitution of the church, and are making an effort to strike at the conscientiousness of 90 per cent of the Christian church which has existed for the last 1,800 years. The history of Christianity shows that women were never intended to vote.
The conference was seriously divided upon this question. Although eventually lost, yet many clergymen permeated with the spirit of advancing civilization, voted in its favor, among them Rev. Dr. Hammond, of Syracuse, New York, a delegate for the episcopacy; while arrayed in bitter opposition was Rev. Mr. Buckley, editor of The Christian Advocate, also a candidate for the bishopric, and the man that when the question of the ordination of Miss Oliver came up a few years since, declared he would oppose the admission of the Mother of the Lord to the ministry. His remark recalls that of Tetzel, the great Catholic dealer in indulgences, given in another part of this work, and illustrates to what extent of blasphemy the opponents of women’s equality proceed. It was not until the seventh day of the conference that the question of woman’s admission was decided in the negative, and the great Methodist Episcopal church put itself upon record as opposed to the recognition of more than one half of its members. The women delegates were not even allowed seats upon the floor during the debate. Mrs. Nind, president of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, arose to vote, but was not counted, although the Woman’s Foreign Missionary societies are making converts where men cannot reach—in the zenanas. The action of the Conference was foreshadowed by that of Baltimore a few weeks previously, when it was decided that women missionaries should not be permitted to administer communion in the zenanas as it would open the door for their ordination to the ministry and this despite the fact that women alone are admitted to the zenanas. At the Methodist minister’s bi-monthly meeting, Syracuse, N.Y., near time of the General Conference, Rev. Thomas Tinsey, of Clyde, read a paper entitled “Is it advisable to make women of the church eligible to all the ecclesiastical councils and the ministerial order of the church,” quoting Paul in opposition to giving her a voice, saying:
What can our modern advocates of licensing and ordaining women and electing them to annual conferences, do with the command to the Corinthians, “Let your women keep silence in the church;” or to Timothy: “Let the women learn in silence and all subjection,” Paul certainly meant something by such teaching. The position taken by the Fathers of Methodism appears to me to be the only tenable one, viz: that the prohibition applies to the legislation or official business of the church—precisely the kind of work contemplated in the effort to make them eligible to the General Conference, and to Methodist orders. Concerning these things, “Let them learn of their husbands at home.”