id="Page_12" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 12]"/> gone. The following years are little, to outward sight, but a record of invalidism, of trying this or that doctor, but still ever decreasing health and strength. Many dyspeptics, from Carlyle to lesser folk, have felt their disease, like charity, a cover for a multitude of sins. Miss Ellis suffered from chronic dyspepsia of aggravated type, from catarrhal and other troubles which finally wore away the always frail thread of life in consumptive decline.[1]

But through all these hard years Miss Ellis was doing what she could, and longing to do more. Until deafness prevented, she always taught in Sunday school. She was a devoted attendant on all church services, and worker in all church causes. The perfection of her handiwork made it in great demand. Knowing now Miss Ellis's possibilities, one almost grudges the Unitarian children, and the innumerable but beloved little nephews and nieces, the years of "Aunt Sallie's" life that went into dainty embroidery and perfect mittens for their wearing. The church fairs were always liberally aided by her willing hands. Indeed, it is difficult, without seeming exaggeration, to express her passion of devotion to her church. It was literally her life. Outside her family, to which she was warmly attached, everything centred for her there, and for many years one of her heaviest crosses was her inability to render the service she desired to her church and denomination.

The portrait prefacing this book was taken in 1871, when Miss Ellis was thirty-six years old,—perhaps the saddest period in her life. Youth, health, fortune, hearing, dear friends, had gone one after another. The future looked dark indeed. She felt within herself capacities for which there seemed no earthly opportunity. The face wears a sadder expression than that characterizing it in later life, when at last she had found her real work.[2]

Rev. Charles Noyes was settled as Unitarian pastor in Cincinnati in 1872. To him Miss Ellis always attributed her first missionary impulse.

In a letter to Rev. W. C. Gannett, July 28, 1885, she said:—

"Yes, it is a great source of comfort to have started the 'good seed,' and now to see so many stronger people taking up the work and doing so much better than I. A great deal is due to dear Mr. Charles Noyes. He won me by his kind heart while here, and was so kind in lending me his manuscripts always, and books, that he kept me along with the religion of the day. Then Mr. Weudte furthered the matter by putting me on the Missionary Committee, and finally started me out with the 'Pamphlet Mission.' You know the rest."

In her diary was a copy of a letter written Mr. Noyes on his departure from Cincinnati, dated June 23, 1875, a portion of which is here given.

"I cannot say 'so be it' to your departure without returning thanks for the many pleasant hours you have afforded me through your manuscripts, the books and papers you have so kindly lent me from time to time. You have given me something to think about for a long time, so I can do without any sermons for a while. I do not expect to find so kind a pastor very soon.

"From your first text, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Take heed, therefore, how ye hear,' I accepted you as a teacher learning more from God than from man. I have followed you from beginning to the end, and I have worked with you and for you to the best of my ability, my strength, and my means. Would I had been a more efficient worker! I have taken heed as to how I have heard. You have not changed my views so much as brought out more clearly what was already in my own mind. The best lesson I have learned from you is a firmer trust in God. You have brought me to the 'Source of all Truth, whence Jesus drew his life.' Here you leave me. An essential point to have reached, in my view; a firm rock on which to rest, and one that can never be taken from me. Some people are not satisfied with a faith so simple. They need more to rest on; as if there could be a stronger, better support than the 'voice in the soul.' From loss of hearing, the 'voice within' has spoken more clearly to me perhaps.... It is a very great disappointment to me to part with you and your family, for I have become very much attached to you all; for even little G—— has learned to look upon me as a friend. It is not every one who wins me; and when one does, it is all the harder to separate from him. Still, we are often compelled to give up our preferences, as I have learned before now.... The benediction I ask is the one you have so often asked for us (Mary——ears to me, and a reliable authority): 'May the Heavenly Father bless, preserve, and guide you all. May he give you wisdom to know and strength to do his holy will forevermore.'"

Mr. Noyes, being asked for his recollections of Miss Ellis, writes:—

"Sallie had a very true, deep, strong religious nature, and a leaning to religious, not to say theological, studies. Alone in Cincinnati when I first went there, I was often a guest at Mr. Ellis's Sunday table. Sallie borrowed my sermons. She liked to talk over the subject of the sermon, and this led to my recommending to her many books for her reading, and loaning to her what I had in my library. She became familiar with the writings of most of our Unitarian writers,—with Channing, Clarke, Hedge, Dewey, Norton, Furness, and many others. She was no careless reader, but a student of the writer's thought.... She had great breadth of mental outlook, and a great heart of charity and love for all. She admired the diversity of opinion in our body, and had faith in the unity of the Spirit that would fuse us into one.... If Sallie ever expressed wonder and surprise, it was that Unitarianism did not grow as fast as it ought, and that those who accepted its teachings did not identify themselves with it. We had our Mission School of about three hundred pupils, and our Sewing School.... The time had not come for the Pamphlet Mission or the Post Office; yet Miss Ellis was making the best preparation possible for her after-work, and in due time the door of best usefulness stood wide open. You know, as we all know, how well she filled her office.... Her letters were sermons,—tracts in themselves, best adapted to her correspondents, and, I am persuaded, did a grand work of their own. She heard with difficulty, she was not an easy talker, but she wrote with great clearness.... More than the books she sent out, she was to many a one the blessed missionary of our faith.... In her early studies the miracle question was a stumbling-block to Sallie. The old-time interpretation of miracle she could not accept; neither could she take up with the mythical theory of Strauss. Miracle must be in harmony with law. Jesus must be to her the natural flower of human nature, the perfect blossom of human development. Nature and the supernatural must be in harmony. Hence the delight she took in Dr. Furness's works. His works helped her, as they have so many others, out of her difficulties about the supernatural. And more than that, they fed her religious life, pure and simple, and let her into the heart of Christ. She often alluded to her debt to Dr. Furness, whom she admired and loved."

Miss Ellis little