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.