Part 10

"Believe me, I am sorry to hear that you were 'too sick to more than keep up' with your work. I know you must be busy at all times, from the report of your work in the Conference 'Unity' you sent me. That number of 'Unity' is very valuable to me, and will be kept for future reference. The four sermons on 'Reasonable Religion,' by Rev. George A. Thayer, have also been kept. I hope soon to see them in a neat binding. They are worthy of the expense. Of the books received from Boston, four have been read by me. Two of them were mostly read as I walked to my work mornings. In the same manner 'Meditations on the Essence of Christianity' was read. This book is very beautiful, its author, Robert Laird Collier. 'Channing's Works' and 'Genuineness of the Gospels' cannot be carried about as readily, so they are to be read and studied on lost days, when I cannot work. The 'Reviews' received are very valuable; I would not part with them for anything. The 'Register' is received regularly from Philadelphia. The last one is very interesting, containing as it does an account of the Festival. It must have been good to be there. To you, and all who have aided you in your generosity to me, I return my heartfelt thanks."

After Miss Ellis's death, he wrote, Feb. 13, 1886:--

"... With this I send you the whole of her correspondence to me, hoping that you may find something that will be of use to you. I cheerfully send you the letter and postals, knowing that my treasures will be in safe keeping. Since Miss Ellis's death they are doubly precious to me; I prize them very highly, because she who wrote them proved herself to be a very dear friend to me,--a laborer longing for more light. Whilst I live I shall never forget how much I owe to her who labored so much in my behalf. It was the one wish of my heart to have met Miss Ellis, and to have thanked her for all that she had done for me; but it was to be otherwise. When I meet her in the country of 'many mansions,' I shall have the opportunity to do so. I believe I shall meet and know her there. Your offer of help is very kind; my greatest drawback is lack of books by Unitarian writers. I buy when I can, but being out of work--that is, steady work--since last September makes it very hard work to get a book very often. If you can help me in this way I shall be very thankful, and if you cannot, I shall be just the same, because I feel that you would if you could. I have much opposition to overcome, standing alone in my belief in the truth of Unitarianism. I have great need of more books. My preparation for the ministry must necessarily be slow, because I can never attend Meadville Theological College. But I am reminded that your time is precious, and so I will close. Mrs. ----, will you at the next meeting of the Women's Auxiliary Conference thank all the dear friends who have done so much for me? If I ever amount to much in life I shall owe it all to the Cincinnati branch of the Women's Auxiliary Conference. Hoping that you will not forget me when sending out literature, I remain, etc."

In another letter he wrote:--

"My object in fitting myself for the ministry is to be able to carry the message of Unitarianism to my brother-laborers, because I believe it will make better men--and women too--of them.... I began to work when I was but a little more than eleven years old, and since that time I have been my own teacher."

A lady in Ohio sends her "Register" regularly (the arrangement being made through Miss Ellis) to the correspondent who wrote her this letter of thanks:--

"I have long postponed the note of thanks I have meant to send you. But when I tell you that I am a dressmaker, you will pardon me, I am sure. This is my harvest season, and I am extremely busy. Being one of the class of work-women who put _themselves_ into what they do, I am exhausted at night, and forced to make Sunday a day of rest indeed.

"The papers do come regularly, to my great joy. I assure you that the pleasure and spiritual strength I get from them, if you could realize it, would compensate you for the trouble an hundred-fold. My business, showing me so plainly the small foibles and weaknesses of human nature, and necessarily binding one's thoughts in large measure to 'band, gusset, and seam, seam, gusset, and band,' or their equivalents of flounces and gores, tends to a wearisome narrowing of the mind; a half-hour spent after work is done, with the 'Register,' opens a window, as it were, into heaven.

"I live alone. At times my isolation is hard to bear; but having seen better days, as the saying goes, to me my deprivations are but part of the discipline that God saw was needful for me. I am shut off, by reason of serving the public, from the society of my equals in education and breeding, and for that of my equals in station I have no taste. _Pardonnez-moi_ these personal details; I give them that you may know how much good you are doing. Long may you be spared the power and the will to do such kindness to those who need. We may never meet on earth, but I trust we shall in heaven."

To Miss Ellis, Aug. 20, 1885, she wrote:--

"I receive the papers, and not only read and enjoy them, but give and send them to others. I am surprised to find 'unconscious' Unitarians wherever I go. I hope you may be well by this time. Do not tire yourself to write. Others need you more than I."

After Miss Ellis's death, she wrote acknowledging the memorial:--

"Many thanks. I was so glad to receive it, and prize it as one of my treasures; also for the welcome tracts and papers. They are like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land to me, and are given away to others."

A woman in a small Indiana village wrote Miss Ellis:--

"I understand you have Liberal literature that you send gratis to hungry people who are not able to gratify their appetite in that direction. It would be greatly appreciated by me, and after reading I would put it where I thought it would do the most good."

Later, she wrote:--

"I have received a paper and often something else every other week. These I have accepted as a kind of trust; and when there has been a favorable opportunity, given them away to friends and acquaintances. I do not press them on any one, nor talk about it much. I have not the courage of a reformer. When I speak to friends (that are kind every other way) of a broader religious belief, they meet me with coldness and distrust. It chills me, and I am silent. Yet I believe, with Helen Williams, if any one is brought to face a great truth, if they accept it, yet do not speak or act upon it, there is retribution, barrenness, for them,--a plunging in the whale's belly, as Jonah was,--a figure so many have laughed at, yet significant for all that. I wonder now at my struggles in former years; am happier since the tangled skein is partially straightened. Still I am not fully in accord with the Unitarians. Miss ---- [another correspondent in the same village] spoke to me some time ago of your desiring us to form a reading circle. I do not know what she said to you. I will give you the situation. I live in a small village of about one hundred inhabitants, and Miss ---- lives about two miles away. I cannot call to mind a woman that would take any interest. They would go to sleep over their knitting, or want to use the time for social chat, as they do not meet day after day at the village store, as the men do (I speak of winter). True, there are a few that would enjoy the reading, yet are so severely Orthodox they could not comprehend a new truth outside of _their_ church. That is the dark side. Now I have often thought if we had a place of meeting, where we could seat a small audience (which we have not), and a good reader (ditto), we could call them together Sunday afternoons and read some of the beautiful sermons you have sent.

"Your work is grand,--the elevation of the human race. The ones that _will_ read, will become better, kindlier, more patient with ignorance; and while they yearn to give every soul a chance, will naturally throw out a better influence and teach a broader religion. As to your paper, not now. It is midwinter; husband, carpenter, out of employment. Intend to take one of your publications after a while."

About two weeks after Miss Ellis's death she addressed this letter to her:--

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I received a "Register" yesterday, directed in a different hand. Are you sick? I hope not. I should grieve indeed if I knew that physical pain had stopped your work. These lines come to my mind:--

"Only a woman, and I could not find The quiet household life that women know; So too, my part where there were sheaves to bind, Not much, perhaps, but more than I could do. My tired feet failed me in the harvest lands, My ripened grain but half-way reaped across; And, where it dropped from over-wearied hands, My best sheaf lies half bound for winds to toss."

Instead, may you continue your work till eventide.

Who can tell, when a mind gives up its beliefs, where it will stop? I seem to believe nothing, unless it is in the Supreme Good, whatever that is,--and my religion, to live the best life I know. The Orthodox preachers say if one strays from the "path," or "back-slides," they are always uneasy and unhappy. How different my experience is! How glad I am to have escaped the little enclosure of dogma, and to stand "far indeed from being wise, but free to learn"!

Hoping this will find you in good health and spirits, I remain

Your friend A---- C----

After hearing of Miss Ellis's death, she wrote:

"Received your postal. Have also received Unitarian papers, and Miss Ellis's memorial, which last I will store among my treasured mementos. How beautiful her life was! Though never having seen her, she will be treasured in my memory as a dear friend. She has sent me almost all the pamphlets, I suppose, that have been written for the purpose of distributing. Having a large family, they have been read and reread, and handed to neighbors and friends. One has no idea how many they will reach, or how much they influence; and yet there is so much prejudice against Unitarians among Orthodox Christians, some would take it as an insult to offer them one of the pamphlets. In our little village the 'United Brethren' have been holding meetings day and night for three weeks, and oh! how they do preach hell, and pray publicly for 'that lady that is leading her daughters down to hell,' simply because she does not believe as they do. I have more tolerance for them than they have for me. I think there are some people they will reach and do good, as I presume the Rev. Sam Jones is doing in Cincinnati."

The following letter to Miss Ellis from a poor old woman to whom she wrote, sent papers and other aid, for several years, is given _verbatim_, to illustrate the range of her sympathies. This letter was also written after Miss Ellis's death:--

"I wish I could come and see you, but I cannot afford to go up and down on the Trains. I have to send by someone, now Miss Ellis you have been a sending me good Papers to read and now you must not think I mean to beg but you sent me a New years Card it was a Rose now I would not take anything for it I am as Foolish as Littel Children is about Pictures the Rose I have is in my Album and if you got any one by you to part With Will you send it to me for this New year I feel more than thankful for the Papers you have sent me.... Well I will close Write to me soon I am alone day and night So goodbye from a Dear Friend to one I Love."

A young man in a State Normal School in Indiana long corresponded with Miss Ellis. He has been an enthusiastic distributor of our literature, and instrumental in procuring Unitarian preaching in his city. Extracts from his letters are here given.

"The papers received are read by myself and others. There are few here who know anything of what Unitarians believe."

A second letter says:--

"The matter sent to me is read by several persons. I think of one young man now who asked me to send you his name. He said he would like to read literature made by persons who are independent of creeds. I gave him Wendte's 'Statement' and Chadwick's 'Art of Life.'

"I am grateful to you for your kindness, and shall be glad to receive what you may send. I read the sermons by Savage with interest. They were the only ones of his I ever saw. I have given and shall continue to give the matter sent me wider circulation. [Mentioning a rebuff recently received, he continues:] This little experience, while not pleasant, is valuable to me. I see that the spirit of the Middle Ages is not entirely dead yet, and that one better not be too hasty. My convictions are just as strong as before."

Another letter says:--

"I know something of what it costs to break away from old associations. I was brought up in the Baptist Church. All my family were of that faith.... My relatives all look upon me as one lost to all true belief, because I cannot see my way clear to go with them in the traditions of the fathers. Still, I feel that to be true to the light I have is better than to have the sanction of those who are simply following what their creed teaches, asking no questions. I do not care to argue with them, and so follow that life that gives me the greatest comfort and satisfaction."

Feb. 11, 1886, he wrote Mrs. Hunert:--

"Miss Ellis was a very dear friend (although I never saw her), and it was a great shock to learn of her decease. The first intimation I had of her death was the article in the 'Register' headed 'A Candle of the Lord.' Whatever literature you may send me shall be given circulation after I have read it. I now supply some half-dozen persons by mail with the tracts sent me. As I know the personal peculiarities of all these parties, I can adapt the matter to each. You will see, therefore, that I am a sort of branch 'mission.' In addition to this, I occasionally write a short article to a local paper in Wayne County upon subjects of interest."

He encloses one of these articles,--subject, "Future or Everlasting Punishment: Which?"

"... Mrs. Smith wrote to me in regard to Miss Ellis's letters. I am very sorry not to have any of them. During the last three years I have moved so frequently, being sometimes in this State and sometimes in W. Virginia, that they were lost, and I am unable to find them. Some of them I carried for a long time in my pocket until they became so worn as to be scarcely recognizable. The form of them has vanished, but the kindness and sympathy they breathed is with me still. The spirit of that sainted woman cannot wax old. I humbly trust that I may be imbued with something of the calm and trust and purity which her letters always suggested. There was, too, an enthusiasm which was untiring, and withal a modesty that never was absent from her utterances. There was ever the absence of anything like dictation in her advice. It was the gentle monition of a friend, never the pompous dictation of conscious superiority. Rev. J. T. Sunderland, of Chicago, is to preach in our city March 21. I have never heard him, and am looking to his coming with expectation."

A young woman who is working out a Homestead and Timber Claim in Nebraska, and has been for several years supplied with much reading matter by Miss Ellis, which she has circulated so zealously as to have become one of the "branch missions," writes:--

"When I was about seventeen years old I joined the Baptist Church in Newport, Ky. (where at the time I was residing, and teaching in the public school in that city); and I was sincere in what I did, only I had so many doubts about many things that they taught, and hesitated from the beginning of the revival until the close before I could decide. Then my decision was made on this, that there were older persons belonging to the church that said they believed the teachings and doctrine, and I thought when I grew older and had more experience that I would understand, and I had a delicate fear to converse with the older members about my doubts for fear of their opinions of me; so I quietly stayed with them for a number of years, when an old friend, a good woman, now gone from among us, induced me to attend your church, Mr. Wendte then being the pastor. The subject he was to speak about was 'the Christ we know.' I remember my thoughts then were about these,--'Christ they know? I don't believe they know any,' and thought I should like to hear what he would say, any way. I well remember that sermon; not one sentence he uttered jarred me in the least; and, strange to say, they were my own thoughts on the subject; but I dared not, even if I could, have expressed myself. I thought over that sermon the whole week every spare moment I had, and even took some that did not justly belong to me. I shall never forget that week. The next Sunday his text was, 'the God we love.' For all I enjoyed the previous sermon, I still thought, 'They love God? Impossible!' and as my friends invited me to go over with them again, I accepted the invitation. I never had God represented to me before as now,--more like a kind father than an austere judge; yes, kind, compassionate, and loving us all alike, condemning only our evil actions. This suited me exactly; so another week was spent in thought. I would think, 'How can I conscientiously be a Baptist and believe this way?' Yet how I disliked leaving the church where many things were endeared to me. It seemed as if I was in a sea of trouble and doubt, not knowing whether to go on or halt and turn back. The next Sunday the subject was, 'the Bible we revere.' I was more than anxious to hear this one, for it seemed to me that on this I would have to decide. I went, and decided. I broke off gradually from my old associations, and attended the services in the Unitarian church from that time until I came West. I never joined the church, but it suited my views best of all churches, and to-day I cannot go in any of the Orthodox churches and feel at home. Now as regards this mission work that you wish me to engage in, I could devote half an hour each day, and am willing to do all I can for the advancement of the cause. My health became very poor, and I went West thinking it would be beneficial. I must say I succeeded, for I am not compelled to stay now for my health, but business keeps me here.... My homestead is three miles from the town, and I go out quite often and stay over Sunday. My house is a very small dug-out. I raised about ten bushels of potatoes, some beans, and a few squashes; have done work I never thought of doing,--that is, planting vegetables, made my own bedstead, put a floor in the house, and lined it with sacking. Some of my lady friends assisted me when they came to see me, and gave me ideas about my new kind of work. Now last, but not least, in regard to Miss Ellis. I wrote to her directly after coming West, and told her I felt isolated from church attendance, but was pleased to find so many people with whom I could converse on Liberal thought. Since that time she had kindly furnished me with reading matter which I have again sent on its errand of peace and joy. I looked over a bundle of letters and can only find this postal card from her.... This card I send you is one she sent me in reference to Mr. Copeland. I wrote her for his address, which she gave me, and I requested him to come to our town and speak to the people here. He kindly consented to come, and spoke on 'Into the Light.' The majority of the people that heard him were well pleased, and he promised me that whenever he passed our town on his way to or from Denver he would stop over and speak. Would like to have the card returned, as I want it for a remembrance."

In her first letter written after Miss Ellis's death she said:--

"Imagine how I felt when I came to your letter, and read the sad news of Miss Ellis's death. I feared the worst when I did not hear from her, for a friend had written me of her decline; but Miss Ellis herself never referred to her illness but once to me. She certainly must have been a patient and uncomplaining invalid, and I, with many others no doubt, feel as if I had lost a dear friend, and would be pleased to receive one of the memorials as a keepsake.... I can assure you that I do all I can towards building up a religion that all could conscientiously embrace. ... All the reading matter sent to me I distribute to the best of my ability, and hope that as it goes on its mission good seed will be sown. There are numbers of Liberal people here who do not belong to any church; and then I find a number of Liberals belonging to Orthodox churches. I will subscribe for Mr. Savage's sermons, for I like his sermons best of all."

Miss Ellis numbered several physicians among her correspondents. One living in Alabama writes:--

"Your Conference speaks truly when it says, 'Many of Miss Ellis's correspondents had come to regard her as a dear friend, though never having seen her face.' I feel that I too may have the privilege and the honor of being enrolled among the number of her unseen friends. I hope some of the good seed she sowed has fallen in good ground, even at this distance from the kind hand that scattered them, and that their fruit may not

'Appear in weeds that mar the land, But in a healthful store.'

I am a regular subscriber to the 'Christian Register' and the 'Unitarian,' all through the influence of Miss Ellis."

A man on a remote plantation in Georgia, who has been most zealous in spreading the new light around him, writes:--

"Please accept thanks for papers and memorial of Miss Sallie Ellis. She has been a good and a kind friend to me, has supplied me for over two years with the best of literature, something new, so different from what we are used to, something that lifts me above myself and gives me new views of heaven and immortality, makes me a better man to wife, family, neighbors, stock, and fills my heart with that new love, the divine brotherhood of all mankind. I deeply lament her loss. I do wish she could have lived a little while longer, for my sake. I do feel so thankful for the papers, and Channing, from Mrs. ----, God bless her!... Any books or papers sent me will be used to the good of the community. The Post Office Mission is doing a good work."

A young German in Tennessee to whom she sent much reading matter wrote her:--