ited? Thereupon Brother
Buckley took the floor and gave expression to his dissent in the
following terms:

I am opposed to inviting any woman to preach before this meeting.
If the mother of our Lord were on earth I should oppose her
preaching here. [Sensation and murmurs of disapproval]. Oh, I do
not mind that, I like at the beginning of a speech to find that
there are two sides to my question. There is no power in the
Methodist Church by which a woman can be licensed to preach; this
is history, this is the report made at the last General
Conference. It is, therefore, not legal for any quarterly
conference to license a woman to preach, nevertheless here is a
woman who claims to have such a license, and we are asked to
invite her to preach.

A BROTHER: We have the right!

BROTHER BUCKLEY: Oh, you have the right to believe the moon is
made of green cheese, but yet have no right to commit the
ministers of this city on an unsettled Church question. [Laughter
and applause]. The tendency of men--now here is a chance to
hiss--the tendency of men to endeavor to force female preachers
on the Church, and the desire to run after female preachers, is,
as Dr. Finney said to the students at Oberlin, an aberration of
amativeness. [Roars of laughter and applause]. When men are moved
by women, then by men under the same circumstances, it is
certainly due to an aberration of amativeness. [Applause and
more laughter]. For some time the male and female students at
Oberlin used to have their prayer-meetings together, but after a
time they divided, and the young men complained to Dr. Finney
that the Holy Ghost no longer came with equal force. Dr. Finney
said this showed amativeness, or that the men were back-sliding.
[Applause].

BROTHER DICKINSON: As to the talk of amativeness, what about our
holiness meetings and seaside meetings, where we go to hear
woman, and to be moved by her words and her personality?
[Applause]. Why are there so many women in the Church? It must be
amativeness which urges them to go and hear men preach.
[Laughter].

Dr. ROACH: If this meeting has any dignity, has any Christian
intelligence, has any weight of character, it ought not to take
this action. [Laughter]. What wildness, what fanaticism, what
strange frea