Why, sir, the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church exists for the ministry and membership of the Church. The ministry and the membership of the Church do not exist for the government. The world was made for man, and not man for the world. That is the fundamental idea in the government of God, as He treats us as human beings. That is the fundamental idea in the government of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as we are enlisted in the support of that government as ministers and members of the Church. Now under this system of ecclesiastical government a time came in our history when we submitted a grave question to the membership of the Church. It was not a question simply of petition, asking the membership to send petitions up to the General Conference. On the contrary, it was submitting a constitutional question not simply to the male members of the Church, for that grand and noble man of the Methodist Church, Dr. David Sherman of the New England Conference, moved himself to strike out the word "male" from the report of the Committee on Lay Delegation. It came to a vote, and it was stricken out, two to one in the vote. When that was done, then the General Conference of our Church submitted to the membership of the Church the question of lay delegation. But back of the question of lay delegation was as grave a question, and that was granting the right of suffrage to the women of the Church. The General Conference assumed the responsibility of giving to the women the right to vote. It may be questioned this way; it may be explained that way; but the facts abide that the General Conference granted to the women of the Church the right to vote on a great and important question in ecclesiastical law. Now if you run a parallel along the line of our government--and it has often been said that there are parallels in the government of the United States corresponding to lines of legislation and legislative action in the government of the Church--you will find that the right of suffrage in the country at the ballot-box has been a gradual growth. One of the most sacred rights that a man, an American citizen, enjoys is the right to cast a ballot for the man or men he would have legislate for him; and for no trivial reason can that right, when once granted to the American citizen, be taken away from him. Go to the State of Massachusetts, and trace the history of citizen suffrage, and you find it commenced in this way: First, a man could vote under the government there who was a member of the Church. Next, he could vote if he were a freeholder. A little later on he could vote if he paid a poll-tax. In the government, and under the legislation of our Church, first the women were granted the right to vote on the principle of lay delegation, not on the "plan" of lay delegation, but on the "principle" of lay delegation. That was decided by Bishop Simpson in the New Hampshire Conference, and by Bishop Janes afterward in one of the New York Conferences.