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[Illustration]




MISS ELLIS'S MISSION.

BY MARY P. W. SMITH.

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.




MISS ELLIS'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.

       *       *       *       *       *

SALLIE ELLIS was born in Cincinnati, March 13, 1835. The old-fashioned
name Sallie, at that time popular in the South and West, was given her
in honor of an aunt. She disliked sailing under the false colors of
"Sarah." In letters she usually signed herself "S. Ellis," because, as
she explained to one correspondent, "I do not know myself as _Sarah_,
and Sallie is not dignified enough in writing to strangers; so I usually
prefer plain S." Late in life, however, for reasons of dignity, she
sometimes felt forced to adopt Sarah as what she called her "official
signature."

Her father, Mr. Rowland Ellis, was born in Boston, but while yet young
removed to Cincinnati, where he still lives in a vigorous and honored
old age. Although his mother, in all her later years at least, was a
devoted attendant upon Theodore Parker's services, Mr. Ellis in early
life was a Baptist. But when the Unitarian Church was founded at
Cincinnati, in 1830, his name appears among the organizers, of whom he
is almost the sole survivor. Of that church he has always been a devoted
supporter and constant attendant. He was a leading banker of the West,
and Sallie