Miss Ellis's Mission

BOSTON:
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.
1886.
Copyright, 1886 , By American Unitarian Association.
University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
TO POST-OFFICE MISSION WORKERS, WEST AND EAST, AND TO EARNEST PEOPLE EVERYWHERE.
It was a very contemptible barley-loaf she had to offer, compared with your fine, white, wheaten cake of youth and riches and strength and learning; but remember she offered her best freely, willingly, faithfully; and when once a thing is offered, it is no longer the little barley-loaf in the lad's hand, but the miraculous satisfying Bread of Heaven in the hand of the Lord of the Harvest, more than sufficient for the hungry multitude. 'And so there is an end of poor Miss Toosey and her Mission!'... Wait a bit! There is no waste in nature, science teaches us; neither is there any in grace, says faith. We cannot always see the results, but they are there as surely in grace as in nature. Miss Toosey's Mission.
This little sketch of Miss Ellis's life and work owes its first suggestion to Rev. J. Ll. Jones, of Chicago, who soon after her death wrote: Why not try for a little memorial of her, to be accompanied with some of the most touching and searching extracts from the letters both received and written by her, and make it into a little booklet for the instruction of Post Office Mission Workers?... Can you not make it something as touching as 'Miss Toosey,' and far more practical,—that is, for our own little household of faith?... We do not want it primarily as a missionary tool, but as a wee fragment of the spiritual history of the world,—something that will lift and touch the soul of everybody.... In short, give us an enlightened Miss Toosey; her mission being as much stronger as Sallie Ellis was more rational and mature than the original 'Miss Toosey'!
No one knowing Miss Ellis could read the touching little story of Miss Toosey's Mission without being struck by a resemblance in the characters, though a resemblance with a marked difference. As one said, I never saw her going up the church aisle Sundays, with her audiphone, her little satchel, her bundle of books and papers, and her hymn-book, without thinking of Miss Toosey. In both lives a seemingly powerless and insignificant personality, through the force of a great yearning to do a bit of God's work in the world, achieved its longing far beyond its fondest dreams. As I read the many letters from all over the country that have come since Miss Ellis's death, as I realize how the spiritual force that burned in the soul of this small, feeble, seemingly helpless woman reached out afar and touched many lives for their enduring ennoblement, her life, so meagre and cramped in its outward aspect, so vivid and intense within and on paper, seems to me not without a touch of romance. To perpetuate a little longer the influence of that life is the object of this sketch.