So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be,
How know I what had need of thee,
For thou wert strong as thou wert true.
Tennyson.
It reprinted from "Unity," Jan. 9, 1886, this tender tribute from a personal friend and a member of the Women's Auxiliary:—
SALLIE ELLIS.
She only did what lay at hand,—
Work that her own hand found to do:
With no thought of a "mission" grand,
Yet, bit by bit, her mission grew.
She did—what others left undone;
She gleaned behind the harvesters:
The scattered ears of grain let stand
By careless ones,—all these were hers.
Patient, unresting, still she wrought,
Though life beat fainter and more faint:
And only as her soul took flight,
We saw—the aureole of the Saint.
Alice Williams Brotherton.
Cincinnati, Ohio.
The memorial closed as follows:—
"At the regular monthly meeting of the Women's Auxiliary Conference of Cincinnati, Jan. 12, 1886, the programme for this meeting was omitted, and the afternoon devoted to tender recollection of the dear friend and valued secretary so recently taken from us, to the reading of many letters from East and West containing loving tribute to her worth and sympathy for our loss, and to devising such plans for continuing our work in future as should be our friend's best commemoration, the tribute she would chiefly have desired. Mrs. George A. Thayer offered the following expression of the feeling of our Society, for entry on our records:—
"'It is fitting that we should place upon the records of this Association some words of grateful remembrance of our late fellow-worker and Secretary, Sallie Ellis, who went up higher on Sunday, Dec. 27, 1885.
"'She was called to her office four years and a half ago, and took up its work from the beginning as one who felt its consecration, and saw the opportunity it offered of being a ministry of the highest things to many souls yearning for a word of religion both reasonable and spiritual.
"'Her long and loving study of Unitarian principles gave her a rare fitness for teaching others the thought of our church. Her personal faith in the deep things of God enabled her to speak ever the needed word to inquirers of the religion of our church. And her sacred sense of duty, not only illustrated in every act of her life, but shining always through her written words, made her an admirable exemplar of the moral quality of our church. So she was all that we could ask as our missionary leader, for she not only taught the stranger from afar of the surpassing beauty and greatness of our Liberal Christianity, but she quickened in us at home new love for its truths, and a deeper sense of our privilege and obligations in being of its disciples.
"'In her life she guided and inspired us, and being dead she abides with us, ever a constant presence, to make us humble that we do so little for our great work, and to stir in us desire to be more faithful to our task in the Master's vineyard.'
"The following extract from a letter of directions left by Miss Ellis in the event of her death was then read:—
"'All the books in the loan library I bequeath to the use of the church, and when not so used, my family shall have the disposal of them.'
"This library comprises over one hundred and thirty religious books, chiefly by Unitarian authors. It was voted that this library 'shall always be known as The Sallie Ellis Loan Library.'
"Mrs. M. E. Hunert, 177 Betts Street, Cincinnati, was appointed Corresponding Secretary. All communications may hereafter be addressed to her. She will continue the free distribution of Unitarian papers, tracts, and sermons, to any names furnished her of persons desiring them. She will also receive subscriptions for Unitarian publications and sell books, when desired, and will loan the books of the Sallie Ellis Loan Library, the borrower paying the postage only. It is earnestly wished to continue Miss Ellis's work in her spirit, and it is hoped correspondents and friends will co-operate with us in this effort.
"Though saddened and greatly bereft, the Cincinnati Auxiliary would still strive to 'look forward and not back,' working on in the spirit of Whittier's poem,
OUR SAINTS.
From the eternal silence rounding
All unsure and starlight here,
Voices of our lost ones sounding,
Bid us be of heart and cheer,
Through the silence, down the spaces,
Falling on the inward ear.Let us draw their mantles o'er us,
Which have fallen in our way:
Let us do the work before us
Calmly, bravely, while we may,
Ere the long night-silence cometh,
And with us it is not day!"
The "In Memoriam" called out letters of deep regret—the regret of those who mourn a personal friend—from every correspondent. A few of these letters appear in the correspondence, selected from many of similar tenor.