Part 12

A lady in Ohio, who became a regular correspondent and bought many books, wrote Miss Ellis:--

"The lectures and papers you have sent have been, and are, the source of much pleasure to me; and I have given them to some of my friends, who also seemed pleased with them. I had thought for a long time that the Unitarian faith would be my idea of true religion, and now I feel _sure_ of it. I knew nothing about its creed, or whether it had one, but had had a desire for several years to know something of it. All my friends and acquaintances were as ignorant as myself, and the most definite idea I had been able to gain concerning it was through James Freeman Clarke's 'Self-Culture.' When I found your little notice in the newspaper, it was just what I most desired. I have always wished to be religious; but there are things in the Bible which my reason repels, and the Orthodox way of teaching them became at last so abhorrent to me that at one time I just gave it all up and ceased to try to believe any of it; though I am sure I always felt the beauty of Christianity as taught by Christ, and would be glad now to be a Christian, if not compelled to believe him the miraculous Son of God.... We like the 'Register' better and better all the time, and I have no doubt shall subscribe for it regularly. I consider it exceedingly high-toned as a moral and religious teacher, and also in a literary point of view. The sermons and lectures supply for us a long-felt need. I intend sending a list of names of friends and acquaintances to the publishers soon. My sister-in-law has become a convert to the Unitarian faith through the medium of the 'Register' and the tracts you have sent me from time to time. She is quite an enthusiast, and feels that Unitarianism is a great boon and comfort to her now in the midst of her troubles. [The sister had recently lost her husband.] She, like myself, could not conscientiously subscribe to the old Orthodox creeds and requirements, and so remained outside the Church; but now she feels that she may be a Christian without stultifying her sense of reason. When she returns home, she expects to subscribe for the 'Register.'"

After Miss Ellis's death she wrote:--

"I received the memorial of Miss Ellis. I thank you sincerely for sending it. It is very touching and beautiful, and delineates just such a character as I conceived hers to be. I had received the sad intelligence of her death through the 'Christian Register' before the memorial reached me, and it was like the shock of learning of the death of a personal friend. I have great reason to be grateful to her and to cherish her memory; for through her I have been led to embrace and to love the broad and charitable Unitarian belief. My reason had struggled for years against the great--to me--stumbling-blocks of Orthodoxy, and had finally abandoned the conflict and settled down into a kind of unthinking unbelief, feeling that it was no use to try to subscribe to any Orthodox creed, and not knowing where to look for any more hopeful, helpful, or reasonable spiritual aid. About four years ago, I think it was, I saw the notice in the paper which is referred to in the memorial, and Then ensued a very pleasant correspondence ... wrote Miss Ellis asking for Unitarian papers, etc. much like that with a dear familiar friend, and she grew to be like one to me, or rather was that almost from the first. She put so much of her real self into her letters that they were like a living presence. So full she was of true Christian love and feeling, so ever ready to forget her own sorrows and sufferings in her sympathy with the sorrows of others, that thus unconsciously truth and love and self-forgetfulness were stamped upon every line that came from her mind and hand. Truly she was 'A Little Pilgrim,' bearing good tidings to the fainting and weary, and lifting them up with her own heavenly strength. Sacred be her memory! Through her I became a subscriber to the 'Christian Register,' which is to me a standard of excellence in a religious, moral, and intellectual point of view. I do not want to be sectarian, as that is not my ideal of a good Unitarian,--I mean in an 'offensive' light; but it really seems to me that even Unitarian wit and fun have a refinement and exquisite touch of humor which cannot be equalled among Orthodox publications. The 'Register,' however, is the only Unitarian paper that I am well acquainted with. A widowed sister-in-law who is with me also became a Unitarian through Miss Ellis. She is a subscriber to 'The Unitarian.' We also have Channing's Works and the 'Oriental Christ,' which I bought through Miss Ellis, and some of Freeman Clarke's books; so that we have the companionship of much of the best Unitarian thought, although we are denied the privilege of a personal ministry."

From Springfield, Ohio:--

"I have been greatly benefited by the papers, sermons, etc., you have so kindly sent me. Hope to have them continued. Will try to have some Unitarian volumes put in our public library. After reading the papers I loan them out to others. Some sermons thus pass into six or eight homes. They set people to thinking. I thank you, and your good Society, for the broad Christian education you are giving me. Will do all I can as your missionary here."

Rev. Samuel May, Leicester, Mass., having offered to send his "Register" to some one, Miss Ellis arranged that it should go to the writer of the above, who acknowledged it as follows:--

"Your postal received. I am very grateful for this kindness, and, as I read the 'Register' this morning, I resolved to use it for others also.... Can't your Association give the ball a push at this place?"

The following extract is from the first letter of a new correspondent, dated Dec. 8, 1885. To him was begun the last postal card, which she was unable to finish. She was so eager about it, dictating faster than one could write. "Tell him I think he will like us when he knows us better," she said.

"Your postal came all right, also copies of several tracts, and specimens of 'Register' and 'Unity.' They are mainly in lines of thought which I have been working on for some years. I am at one with the authors in main points, but not prepared to accept all of the so-called advanced or radical expressions. My own experience, observation, and reflection seem to show that they have swung too far from Orthodoxy, and the truth lies between; but I am not fit to decide yet. From the pamphlet of selections of Channing's writings, with which I am particularly pleased, I have derived some ideas which inspire me for a greater activity, and I hope a more effective activity, in my work of teaching.... I have a friend who also feels dissatisfied with current Orthodoxy. If you see fit, I wish you to send him some of those tracts. I wish to use my copies here, or I would send them."

The estimation in which Miss Ellis was held by some of her fellow-workers appears in the following extracts from letters and papers.

At the conclusion of a letter, a part of which is given elsewhere, Rev. A. A. Livermore, President of Meadville Theological School, says:--

"But though disinterested and devoted to family interests and helpful to the growing households of her brothers and sisters, the crowning interest that came to absorb and inspire her advanced Christian life was the propagation of her own Unitarian faith, early learned, later disciplined, and mellowed and sanctified by trial and years. What had been a stay and staff to her own mind and heart she was anxious to communicate to others. Hence she sought the instrumentalities of the pen and press, and the Post Office Mission sprang into being,--the invention of a Christian woman's heart, bent on doing good spiritually. The zeal, fidelity, sympathy, and adaptation with which she developed and pursued this work have been told elsewhere. It is another lesson to teach us that ever new means will arise, as time and opportunity serve, for the faithful in heart and life to hasten the coming of the Master's kingdom of righteousness and love. Miss Ellis infused a sweetness and sympathy all her own into her mission. To her it was no task, but a delight, as her letters show,--her meat and drink to help struggling souls to light and Christian faith. Peace to her beautiful and saintly memory!"

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(From Rev. S. J. Barrows, editor "Christian Register.")

A CANDLE OF THE LORD.

It was a feeble socket that held it. It was a constant surprise that so small a candle could give forth so much light. But its special mission was not so much to illumine the world with its own light as it was to ignite other minds and hearts from its own flame. "Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire!" says the apostle. Nothing is small, it has been said, which is great in its consequences. It does not need a stroke of lightning from heaven to raze Chicago to the ground: a little lamp-flame near a pile of hay is sufficient. We forget sometimes the power of a single humble life to extend and duplicate its influence. We have never learned yet how far the little candle can throw its beams, when its waves of light and heat come in contact with minds and hearts that are prepared for the illumination it may give. The wire and the battery have not entirely superseded the torch-bearer. The lamps in the house may have been filled, the gas may be ready to turn on; what is needed is for some one to go about with match or torch or candle, and tip the burner with its flame.

So, as we have said, it was the mission of this candle of the Lord to ignite other minds and hearts. She had discovered that the vast system of intercommunication established by the post-office might be used for moral as well as for commercial means. In connection with a faithful co-worker, she devoted herself to the dissemination of kindling literature. Set like a luminous panel amid a great wall of advertisements was a brief notice, in some of the large Western dailies, that those who wished Liberal religious literature might have it for the asking, and by sending to the Cincinnati Post Office Mission. In the columns of this paper, from time to time, we have shown what a wide-spread influence these little notices had. They opened avenues of communication to many hungry souls. The confidence of many in doubt and perplexity was secured. The lady who was called to this special work had a keen intuition as to what was needed in each special case. It was not only that she sent the right tracts and the right books, and thus set up guide-posts for groping men and women; not less prized by many of her correspondents was the simple, earnest faith and cordial sympathy which she expressed in her own letters. Many are grateful to her for pointing out the way and giving the right impulse at the right time. Prevented by deafness from taking an active part in social intercourse, she yet found an opportunity to unstop the deaf ears of others and to open their blind eyes. In this Post Office Mission work was a channel for her faithful and consecrated endeavors.

We cannot estimate the radiating influence of such a life. Its quickening flame has gone from heart to heart, and it is destined to go still further. Her devoted example has given an impulse to many other women in the Unitarian body, who are sowing in the same field the seed for an abundant harvest. It is now seen that this diffusion of our literature is one of the mightiest means for propagating our faith. If such a devoted woman, working independently, could accomplish so much, how much more might be effected by thorough organizations and wide co-operation for the same purpose!

Her best monument will be the prosecution and extension of the work to which she gave her life. It was but a pair of lines in the "Deaths" of the last week's "Register" which told that the candle had gone out, but its flame is still propagated in the lives it has served to kindle. The great work of her life was done far beyond the circle of her immediate influence; and there are many who have never seen her in the flesh, who will still feel that the name of Sarah Ellis represents an abiding spiritual reality.

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(From Rev. George A. Thayer in "Unity," Jan. 23, 1886.)

SARAH ELLIS.

Sarah Ellis, the faithful organizer of the Cincinnati Post Office Mission, and the pioneer in that admirable form of the ministry of Unitarian doctrine through the writing of letters and the circulation of religious literature, "went up higher" from her sick-bed, on Sunday evening, December 27. There are many, East and West, to whom her wise guidance in spiritual perplexities has been as a strong hand lifting them from confusion and doubt concerning all religion, into tranquil joy, who will read that she is dead, with the shock which comes with an unforewarned calamity. For almost up to her last hour she was carrying on her correspondence with the wide circle of men and women to whom she periodically sent glad tidings of a reasonable faith, and never giving intimation to the most regular of these correspondents that she was any less vigorous of health than usual. For many months her friends had seen the end approaching, and very likely she herself had understood that "the task was great, the day short, and it was not incumbent upon her to complete the work." But her inexorable conscience, blended with her delight in having found at last, within this recent five years, a work needing to be done, and calling into use her store of admirable wisdom for such business, kept her at her duty until the body ceased to obey the will.

Only the people who knew Miss Ellis well could understand her rare fitness for her office, through long and ripe study of Unitarian religious literature, and through her genius for apprehending at once what special reading and counsel her various applicants for light upon their darkened ways of the spirit needed to receive,--only those to whom she spoke the word in season, or those nearer home to whom she was a quiet exemplar in holy things, can appreciate the quality of virtue enclosed in that fragile and infirm body, which shines on earth only "in minds made better by its presence," but shines with renewed honor elsewhere in the house of many mansions.

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It was not my good fortune to know Miss Ellis personally, but her works have praised her East as well as West. Her death is a great calamity to the cause, as well as a great sorrow to her friends; but she has put life and power into a good instrument of influence, and it will live.

REV. GRINDALL REYNOLDS,

_Secretary American Unitarian Association, Boston, Mass._

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LEICESTER, Mass, April 10, 1886.

... Her communications made no mention of her infirmities or illness; and her death was a great surprise. I had become quite interested in her manner of doing her work; the perfect intelligence, good sense, and self-reliance she manifested.-----of Springfield, Ohio, has written to me in the highest appreciation of her helpfulness to him.... I enclose three of her postal cards, which, if quite convenient, may come back to me. [On one of these postal cards Mr. May has indorsed, "Miss Ellis lived but about a month after this was written. Her death was a great and immediate loss to the cause of a wise and large Christian faith in the West."] She was eminently worthy of a special commemoration and canonization.

Respectfully yours, Samuel J. May.

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I have thought of you often since the "Christian Register" brought the news of Miss Ellis's death, and am moved to express my sympathy for the loss you have met,--a loss which all of us share indeed. I suppose it was very good to _her_ to be summoned from a state of feebleness; but it will not be easy, I believe, to fill the vacant place. Perhaps her own inspiration will rest upon her successor, and so she will indeed help to carry on the work which she has done so beautifully.

I suppose the time will come, some day, when the loss of a good worker in our Conference will not be felt so seriously as now; but we are far too few as yet.

MISS ABBY W. MAY,

_President Women's Auxiliary Conference, Boston, Mass._

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Though I had had but comparatively little correspondence with Miss Ellis, that little had made me regard her as a personal friend, and I felt especially drawn towards her after I learned about her deafness, for that was my own mother's trial for many years. It is a comfort to think that all suffering and weakness are over for her; and so we can but rejoice that she has entered upon the blessed life, although the feeling of loss must be very great. I have thought often of Mr. Beach's sudden death last summer, during the last few weeks, and I was glad to tell our friends, at the meeting the other day, of Miss Ellis's tender, helping sympathy for his mother and sisters at that time. I think one can hardly help feeling that perhaps Miss Ellis and the young friend whom she had led to a bright and happy faith may already have met and rejoiced together in the heavenly life. Much sympathy has been expressed here for Miss Ellis's father. I hope that the thought of all that she has gained is a constant comfort and help to him.

MRS. J. I. W. THACHER,

_Secretary Women's Auxiliary Conference, Boston, Mass._

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The news of Miss Ellis's departure from among us filled us all with grief and regret; and yet we feel she is so sure to continue her good work there, that we ought not to _regret_. What a delightful awakening for her when, with no feeling of weakness or pain, she opens her eyes to find herself surrounded by those who have gone before, whose lives she had gladdened here, and to learn that part of her mission there is to meet and welcome her host of friends, personal and parochial, as they follow her over there! How many people will miss her here! Ten times one is ten. Their number cannot be estimated.

MISS F. LE BARON,

_Sec. Western Women's Unitarian Conf., Chicago, Ill._

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I want to express my great sympathy for you and your Society in the loss of your friend Miss Ellis.

Although I knew she had been an invalid for a long time, the news of her death was a great shock to me. She has been so kind in helping me to get started in the Post Office Mission, and made me feel so truly that she stood ready to help always, that I cannot but feel that I have in her death lost a good friend, which must be the case with many others all over the country. She has left us all the memory of a brave example, which ought to fill us with the desire to carry on the good work by her begun, more faithfully than ever.

MISS ELLEN M. GOULD,

_Sec. Post Office Mission Committee, Davenport, Ia._

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I have just heard of the death of Miss Ellis. How great a loss it is to all of us, but how great a _gain_ to all of us that she has lived, and illustrated the possibilities of a life lived under even so many limitations as hedged her about! Will you not send me a sketch of her life and work for the next number of the "Unitarian"?

MISS ELIZA R. SUNDERLAND,

_Assistant Editor "Unitarian," Chicago, Ill._

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I had heard from time to time that she was feeble, but her fragile frame held so strong a spirit, that I hoped she would triumph over bodily weakness for many years to come. The world can ill spare such as she. Each time I saw her I was impressed more and more with the strength of her character and the clearness and directness of her mind. Upon meeting a stranger of whom one has heard much there is almost always a little period of bewilderment before the ideal and real can be harmonized, even where there is not disappointment; and at first I was at a loss how to reconcile the strong, well-balanced mind, with its keen insight,--as revealed in her letters,--with the delicate, dainty, sweet-looking little woman, shut out from her kind to so great a degree by her affliction. Yet when her tiny hand grasped mine so firmly at our first meeting, there was that in the clasp that reconciled and united my ideal with the actual; they were only two sides of the same nature. She was so strong, too, in being so genuine and so full of faith. In these halting, doubting times, a faith in the eternal verities so strong and unwavering as hers is like a rock to many a tossed and uncertain soul. Such people do not know their own power of helping. I can never refrain from questioning _why_ those who are so needed in the world must be taken, when the useless and worthless are left, unless it is that they go that they may leave the _spirit_ of their service to do a larger work as a heritage to all who will accept it. Though dead, they speak with many tongues.

MISS FRANCES L. ROBERTS,

_Ex-Sec. Western Women's Unitarian Conf., Chicago, Ill._

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A Union Meeting of the Women's Auxiliary Conference for Suffolk County, which includes all the branches of the Conference in the Unitarian churches of Boston, was held at Arlington Street Church on Thursday, Jan. 21, 1886.

At this meeting was officially announced, with the most profound regret, the death of Miss Ellis, of Cincinnati. A brief account of her life in connection with the work of the Conference was given by Mrs. J. I. W. Thacher, Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, and Miss Abby W. May, and it was unanimously agreed that there should be entered on the records of the meeting, and transmitted to the friends of Miss Ellis, an expression of our fullest appreciation of her beautiful and self-sacrificing character, our high estimation of the work in which she had already accomplished so much, and our deep and earnest sympathy for those who have suffered an irreparable loss. Our sorrow is not without the hope that the tender memory of a life so pure and unselfish, and such earnest devotion to all the principles of our religious faith, may influence for good the lives of each and all of us, and prove an incentive to every member of our Conference to further activity in the work we are trying to do.

EMILY A. FIFIELD, _Director_.

_For the Suffolk County Branches of the Women's Auxiliary Conference._

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PORTLAND, ME., Jan. 17, 1886.