But suppose it is not; the General Conference of 1880 certainly did not understand the matter as the General Conference of 1872 did. For if it had, there would have been no necessity for legislation at all, there would have been no need for putting in the law as it now stands, that the pronoun "he," wherever employed, shall not be considered as prohibiting women from holding the offices of Sunday-school Superintendent, Class Leader, and Steward. Now, for this reason, and for the further reason that it is a matter of immense importance that we guard against despotism, I oppose changing the _personnel_ of the General Conference without my Annual Conference has a right to vote upon it, and it is voted upon. Despotism is a suitable term. A General Conference may become a despot, and just as soon as it goes outside of its legitimate province, then it usurps, and so far as it usurps, it becomes despotic, and is a despot; and you and I, so far as our Annual Conferences are concerned, do well to regard with a deep jealousy an infringement upon our organic rights. The only safety of the Church is the equipoise that is constituted by the relation the Annual Conferences sustain to the General Conference, and far safer is it for us to bring these women of the Church, elect, honorable women, into the General Conference of the Church by the same way that their husbands and brothers are here. There is another thought that I wish to suggest. What are the possibilities with regard to lay delegation, supposing the design of those who wish to bring women in without further action is successful? You make lay delegation a farce in this body. The presiding elders and pastors of the Church may act in co-operation, and they can elect their own wives as delegates to this General Conference, and thus lay delegation comes to be a farce. Some of you may laugh at this suggestion, but it is an _in posse_, and it may easily be made an _in esse_. It is important to us that the laity should hold the place they have by the regulations we have, and they should be changed only to make them more perfect. No body is safe without adherence to law. We may set lightly by law; we may regard it as a thing to be laid aside at the command of excitement or passion, but the nation that does that is a doomed nation, and the Church that does that has its history already written. The only safe course for us to pursue is to pursue the wise, careful, judicious, and conservative--I mean every word--and conservative course we have heretofore pursued through all our history. When we boast of what Methodism has done, or what she is going to do, let us remember it is because of her firm adherence to law. It is with her as it is with the German nation and the Anglo-Saxon race--everywhere our glory is in our adherence to wise laws, and if we pass unwise laws, in repealing them in the same wise. ADDRESS OF GENERAL CLINTON B. FISK.