Miss Ellis's Mission Part 13

(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 inc.u.mbent 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.

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 a.s.sociation, Boston, Ma.s.s._

LEICESTER, Ma.s.s, 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.

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, Ma.s.s._

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, Ma.s.s._

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._

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._

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 ill.u.s.trated 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,

_a.s.sistant Editor "Unitarian," Chicago, Ill._

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._

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._

PORTLAND, ME., Jan. 17, 1886.

MRS. FAYETTE SMITH, Director of Women's Conference:

At a recent meeting of the Portland branch of the Women's Auxiliary Conference, an article in the "Christian Register," ent.i.tled "A Candle of the Lord," was read; and on motion of Mrs. Dr. J. T.

Gilman, the Secretary was requested to express to your Conference the sympathy of our little band in the death of Miss Sarah Ellis.

While we cannot have the sense of personal loss that you feel in the extinguishment of that light, we have the highest admiration for the work she accomplished under such limitations, and trust that her example will be an incentive to every Unitarian woman to do something to continue it, till the flame she kindled may become a glorious light, glowing in every hamlet of our common country.