Miss Ellis's Mission Part 10

A young Englishman in Frankfort, Ky., wrote Mrs. Hunert, in answer to her card of inquiry:

"I do take the 'Register,' 'Unity,' and 'Unitarian;' I am almost entirely dependent upon what I read here, as I can hear no Liberal preaching, and meet with very few who have sympathy with Liberal religious views. I did get the memorial of Miss Ellis, and will prize it much, as I was better acquainted with her than any one connected with the church at Cincinnati, and looked upon her as one of my best friends, and a very n.o.ble lady. The day on which I received your postal, I met the chaplain of the penitentiary here, and he told me how much the Unitarian literature that was sent from the East was liked by him; that it was all distributed, and enjoyed very much by the inmates of the prison. If I had another copy or two of Miss Ellis's memorial, I would give one to the chaplain, and another gentleman,--about the only Unitarian I know here."

The following correspondence is with a workingman in Northern Ohio,--a young Englishman, whose letters tell his story. He once rose at four o'clock to write Miss Ellis before going to his daily work. One of his first letters to her said:--

MARCH 16, 1885.

Now, that you may know in what walk of life I move, I must tell you that I am a laborer. When working by the month, my wages never exceeded twelve dollars a month. From such small wages I have built up a small library of 155 volumes; have also 156 pamphlets. I take unceasing delight in reading, and now that I have others dependent on me, am not able to procure all the books I need. By some I have been encouraged to prepare for the ministry. Such also is my aspiration. It may be years before I shall become a minister, because my preparation is not to be accomplished very quickly. Oh, how I wish that some one from their abundance would forward me some of the books and pamphlets they have cast aside, having no further use for! They would be of great use to me. What are the qualifications necessary for the Unitarian ministry? Will you please tell me? If possible for you to do so, please send me a few more sermons by Rev. G. A. Thayer, and I shall be greatly obliged.

Miss Ellis forwarded this letter to Miss M. O. Rogers, Secretary of the King's Chapel branch of the Women's Auxiliary Conference, Boston, Ma.s.s., who had written, offering aid in her work. As a result, the King's Chapel Women's Auxiliary Conference sent this young man many Unitarian books of value, and the "Unitarian Review" regularly, for which his grat.i.tude was great. He loans and distributes all matter sent him, and has procured many tracts from the American Unitarian a.s.sociation for distribution. A portion of Miss Ellis's reply to the letter given above is as follows:--

MARCH 18,1885.

Your letter was read with much interest, and we are glad to know our "little society has done good work."... Don't be discouraged if you cannot convert the world at once, but wait quietly till your time comes to do more. You are young yet. Think I can spare a few more of Mr. Thayer's sermons. He has only had four sermons on "Reasonable Religion" published.... Will send you the Meadville catalogue next week, and you can see for yourself, and afterwards write to President A. A. Livermore, telling him I sent you the catalogue. He can give you all further information. He was the pastor in Cincinnati from the time I was fourteen to twenty-one, and knows us well.... Hope to hear further from you occasionally. Work on quietly, knowing the discipline will the better fit you for ministerial labors. We can't jump into the highest calling on earth in a moment, and now-a-days a man must be something of more than ordinary ability to enter a Unitarian pulpit. It is not an easy place to fill.

He wrote to her, June 14, 1885:--

"Believe me, I am sorry to hear that you were 'too sick to more than keep up' with your work. I know you must be busy at all times, from the report of your work in the Conference 'Unity' you sent me.

That number of 'Unity' is very valuable to me, and will be kept for future reference. The four sermons on 'Reasonable Religion,' by Rev. George A. Thayer, have also been kept. I hope soon to see them in a neat binding. They are worthy of the expense. Of the books received from Boston, four have been read by me. Two of them were mostly read as I walked to my work mornings. In the same manner 'Meditations on the Essence of Christianity' was read. This book is very beautiful, its author, Robert Laird Collier. 'Channing's Works' and 'Genuineness of the Gospels' cannot be carried about as readily, so they are to be read and studied on lost days, when I cannot work. The 'Reviews' received are very valuable; I would not part with them for anything. The 'Register' is received regularly from Philadelphia. The last one is very interesting, containing as it does an account of the Festival. It must have been good to be there. To you, and all who have aided you in your generosity to me, I return my heartfelt thanks."

After Miss Ellis's death, he wrote, Feb. 13, 1886:--

"... With this I send you the whole of her correspondence to me, hoping that you may find something that will be of use to you. I cheerfully send you the letter and postals, knowing that my treasures will be in safe keeping. Since Miss Ellis's death they are doubly precious to me; I prize them very highly, because she who wrote them proved herself to be a very dear friend to me,--a laborer longing for more light. Whilst I live I shall never forget how much I owe to her who labored so much in my behalf. It was the one wish of my heart to have met Miss Ellis, and to have thanked her for all that she had done for me; but it was to be otherwise.

When I meet her in the country of 'many mansions,' I shall have the opportunity to do so. I believe I shall meet and know her there.

Your offer of help is very kind; my greatest drawback is lack of books by Unitarian writers. I buy when I can, but being out of work--that is, steady work--since last September makes it very hard work to get a book very often. If you can help me in this way I shall be very thankful, and if you cannot, I shall be just the same, because I feel that you would if you could. I have much opposition to overcome, standing alone in my belief in the truth of Unitarianism. I have great need of more books. My preparation for the ministry must necessarily be slow, because I can never attend Meadville Theological College. But I am reminded that your time is precious, and so I will close. Mrs. ----, will you at the next meeting of the Women's Auxiliary Conference thank all the dear friends who have done so much for me? If I ever amount to much in life I shall owe it all to the Cincinnati branch of the Women's Auxiliary Conference. Hoping that you will not forget me when sending out literature, I remain, etc."

In another letter he wrote:--

"My object in fitting myself for the ministry is to be able to carry the message of Unitarianism to my brother-laborers, because I believe it will make better men--and women too--of them.... I began to work when I was but a little more than eleven years old, and since that time I have been my own teacher."

A lady in Ohio sends her "Register" regularly (the arrangement being made through Miss Ellis) to the correspondent who wrote her this letter of thanks:--

"I have long postponed the note of thanks I have meant to send you.

But when I tell you that I am a dressmaker, you will pardon me, I am sure. This is my harvest season, and I am extremely busy. Being one of the cla.s.s of work-women who put _themselves_ into what they do, I am exhausted at night, and forced to make Sunday a day of rest indeed.

"The papers do come regularly, to my great joy. I a.s.sure you that the pleasure and spiritual strength I get from them, if you could realize it, would compensate you for the trouble an hundred-fold. My business, showing me so plainly the small foibles and weaknesses of human nature, and necessarily binding one's thoughts in large measure to 'band, gusset, and seam, seam, gusset, and band,' or their equivalents of flounces and gores, tends to a wearisome narrowing of the mind; a half-hour spent after work is done, with the 'Register,' opens a window, as it were, into heaven.

"I live alone. At times my isolation is hard to bear; but having seen better days, as the saying goes, to me my deprivations are but part of the discipline that G.o.d saw was needful for me. I am shut off, by reason of serving the public, from the society of my equals in education and breeding, and for that of my equals in station I have no taste. _Pardonnez-moi_ these personal details; I give them that you may know how much good you are doing. Long may you be spared the power and the will to do such kindness to those who need.

We may never meet on earth, but I trust we shall in heaven."

To Miss Ellis, Aug. 20, 1885, she wrote:--

"I receive the papers, and not only read and enjoy them, but give and send them to others. I am surprised to find 'unconscious'

Unitarians wherever I go. I hope you may be well by this time. Do not tire yourself to write. Others need you more than I."

After Miss Ellis's death, she wrote acknowledging the memorial:--

"Many thanks. I was so glad to receive it, and prize it as one of my treasures; also for the welcome tracts and papers. They are like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land to me, and are given away to others."

A woman in a small Indiana village wrote Miss Ellis:--

"I understand you have Liberal literature that you send gratis to hungry people who are not able to gratify their appet.i.te in that direction. It would be greatly appreciated by me, and after reading I would put it where I thought it would do the most good."

Later, she wrote:--

"I have received a paper and often something else every other week.

These I have accepted as a kind of trust; and when there has been a favorable opportunity, given them away to friends and acquaintances. I do not press them on any one, nor talk about it much. I have not the courage of a reformer. When I speak to friends (that are kind every other way) of a broader religious belief, they meet me with coldness and distrust. It chills me, and I am silent.

Yet I believe, with Helen Williams, if any one is brought to face a great truth, if they accept it, yet do not speak or act upon it, there is retribution, barrenness, for them,--a plunging in the whale's belly, as Jonah was,--a figure so many have laughed at, yet significant for all that. I wonder now at my struggles in former years; am happier since the tangled skein is partially straightened. Still I am not fully in accord with the Unitarians.

Miss ---- [another correspondent in the same village] spoke to me some time ago of your desiring us to form a reading circle. I do not know what she said to you. I will give you the situation. I live in a small village of about one hundred inhabitants, and Miss ---- lives about two miles away. I cannot call to mind a woman that would take any interest. They would go to sleep over their knitting, or want to use the time for social chat, as they do not meet day after day at the village store, as the men do (I speak of winter). True, there are a few that would enjoy the reading, yet are so severely Orthodox they could not comprehend a new truth outside of _their_ church. That is the dark side. Now I have often thought if we had a place of meeting, where we could seat a small audience (which we have not), and a good reader (ditto), we could call them together Sunday afternoons and read some of the beautiful sermons you have sent.

"Your work is grand,--the elevation of the human race. The ones that _will_ read, will become better, kindlier, more patient with ignorance; and while they yearn to give every soul a chance, will naturally throw out a better influence and teach a broader religion.

As to your paper, not now. It is midwinter; husband, carpenter, out of employment. Intend to take one of your publications after a while."

About two weeks after Miss Ellis's death she addressed this letter to her:--

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I received a "Register" yesterday, directed in a different hand. Are you sick? I hope not. I should grieve indeed if I knew that physical pain had stopped your work. These lines come to my mind:--

"Only a woman, and I could not find The quiet household life that women know; So too, my part where there were sheaves to bind, Not much, perhaps, but more than I could do.

My tired feet failed me in the harvest lands, My ripened grain but half-way reaped across; And, where it dropped from over-wearied hands, My best sheaf lies half bound for winds to toss."

Instead, may you continue your work till eventide.

Who can tell, when a mind gives up its beliefs, where it will stop?

I seem to believe nothing, unless it is in the Supreme Good, whatever that is,--and my religion, to live the best life I know.

The Orthodox preachers say if one strays from the "path," or "back-slides," they are always uneasy and unhappy. How different my experience is! How glad I am to have escaped the little enclosure of dogma, and to stand "far indeed from being wise, but free to learn"!

Hoping this will find you in good health and spirits, I remain

Your friend A---- C----

After hearing of Miss Ellis's death, she wrote:

"Received your postal. Have also received Unitarian papers, and Miss Ellis's memorial, which last I will store among my treasured mementos. How beautiful her life was! Though never having seen her, she will be treasured in my memory as a dear friend. She has sent me almost all the pamphlets, I suppose, that have been written for the purpose of distributing. Having a large family, they have been read and reread, and handed to neighbors and friends. One has no idea how many they will reach, or how much they influence; and yet there is so much prejudice against Unitarians among Orthodox Christians, some would take it as an insult to offer them one of the pamphlets. In our little village the 'United Brethren' have been holding meetings day and night for three weeks, and oh! how they do preach h.e.l.l, and pray publicly for 'that lady that is leading her daughters down to h.e.l.l,' simply because she does not believe as they do. I have more tolerance for them than they have for me. I think there are some people they will reach and do good, as I presume the Rev. Sam Jones is doing in Cincinnati."

The following letter to Miss Ellis from a poor old woman to whom she wrote, sent papers and other aid, for several years, is given _verbatim_, to ill.u.s.trate the range of her sympathies. This letter was also written after Miss Ellis's death:--

"I wish I could come and see you, but I cannot afford to go up and down on the Trains. I have to send by someone, now Miss Ellis you have been a sending me good Papers to read and now you must not think I mean to beg but you sent me a New years Card it was a Rose now I would not take anything for it I am as Foolish as Littel Children is about Pictures the Rose I have is in my Alb.u.m and if you got any one by you to part With Will you send it to me for this New year I feel more than thankful for the Papers you have sent me.... Well I will close Write to me soon I am alone day and night So goodbye from a Dear Friend to one I Love."

A young man in a State Normal School in Indiana long corresponded with Miss Ellis. He has been an enthusiastic distributor of our literature, and instrumental in procuring Unitarian preaching in his city. Extracts from his letters are here given.

"The papers received are read by myself and others. There are few here who know anything of what Unitarians believe."

A second letter says:--

"The matter sent to me is read by several persons. I think of one young man now who asked me to send you his name. He said he would like to read literature made by persons who are independent of creeds. I gave him Wendte's 'Statement' and Chadwick's 'Art of Life.'

"I am grateful to you for your kindness, and shall be glad to receive what you may send. I read the sermons by Savage with interest. They were the only ones of his I ever saw. I have given and shall continue to give the matter sent me wider circulation.

[Mentioning a rebuff recently received, he continues:] This little experience, while not pleasant, is valuable to me. I see that the spirit of the Middle Ages is not entirely dead yet, and that one better not be too hasty. My convictions are just as strong as before."