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!"
(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 The wire and the battery have not entirely superseded the torch-bearer.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.
(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.
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.
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.