Another change for the better has been the enlargement of woman’s sphere of activity in the promotion of Christianity and of moral reform.  As an illustration of this fact, I may cite a rather unique incident in my own experience.  During the winter of 1872 I invited Miss Sarah F. Smiley, an eminent and most evangelical minister in the Society of Friends (and a sister of the Messrs. Albert and Daniel Smiley, the proprietors of the Lake Mohonk House) to deliver a religious address in my pulpit.  The discourse she delivered was strong in intellect, orthodox in doctrine and fervently spiritual in character; the large audience was both delighted and edified.  A neighboring minister presented a complaint before the Presbytery of Brooklyn, alleging that my proceeding had been both un-Presbyterian and un-Scriptural.  The complainant was not able to produce a syllable of law from our form of government forbidding what I had done.  Long years before, a General Assembly had recommended that “women should not be permitted to address a promiscuous assemblage” in any of our churches; but a mere “deliverance” of a General Assembly has no binding legal authority.

In my defense I was careful not to advocate the ordination of women to the ministry in the Presbyterian Church, or their installation in the pastorate.  I contended that as our confession of faith was silent on the subject, and that as godly women in the early church were active in the promotion of Christianity (one of them named Anna having publicly proclaimed the coming Messiah), and that as the ministry of my excellent friend, the Quakeress, had for many years been attended by the abundant blessings of the Holy Spirit, my act was rather to be commended than condemned.  The discussion before the Presbytery lasted for two days and produced a wide and rather sensational interest over the country.  The final vote of the Presbytery, while withholding any censure of my course under the circumstances, was adverse to the practice of permitting women to address “promiscuous audiences” in our churches.  Two or three years afterwards, a case similar to mine was appealed to the General Assembly and that body wisely decided that such questions should be left to the judgment and conscience of the pastors and church sessions.  When the news of this action of the assembly reached us, the old sexton of the Lafayette Avenue Church hoisted (to the great amusement of our people) the stars and stripes on the church tower as a token of victory.  It has now become quite customary to invite female missionaries, and other godly women, to address audiences composed of both sexes in our churches; the padlock has been taken off the tongue of any consecrated Christian woman who has a message from the Master.  I invited Miss Willard and Lady Henry Somerset to advocate the Christian grace of temperance from my pulpit; and if I were still a pastor I should rejoice to invite that good angel of beneficence, Miss Helen M. Gould, to deliver there such an address as she lately made in the splendid building she has erected for the “Naval Christian Association.”