the quadrennial General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the first woman ever elected to a seat in that august body.
MRS. WILLIAM BUTLER.
Mrs. Butler, known as "The Mother of Missions," was the wife of Rev. William Butler, who was commissioned in 1856 to open the mission work for the Methodist Episcopal Church. After passing through the great Sepoy rebellion, in 1857, their headquarters were made at Bareilly, India. After eight years in India, Dr. Butler returned to the United States, and was then sent by his church to the missionary field in Mexico. Mrs. Butler has reached the advanced age of ninety years. She makes her home at Newton Center, Massachusetts.
Mrs. William J. Schieffelin, Miss Grace Dodge, Mrs. Henry W. Peabody, of Boston, chairman of the central committee of the United States for women's foreign misssions; Mrs. Helen Barrett Montgomery, Miss Jennie V. Hughes, of China; Dr. Mary Riggs Noble, Mrs. Joseph H. Knowles, who is chairman of the committee of prayer circles, and secretary of the Methodist Women's Foreign Missionary Society, are all women actively engaged in missionary work. Mrs. Wilfred Grenfell, whose husband is superintendent of the Labrador Medical Mission, was Miss Anna McClanahan, of Chicago, Illinois, and since her marriage has been an able assistant of her husband in his work among these far northern people.
