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 withyour fine, white, wheaten cake of youth and riches and strength andlearning; but remember she offered her best freely, willingly,faithfully; and when once a thing is offered, it is no longer the littlebarley-loaf in the lad's hand, but the miraculous satisfying Bread ofHeaven in the hand of the Lord of the Harvest, more than sufficient forthe hungry multitude."
"'And so there is an end of poor Miss Toosey and her Mission!'... Waita bit! There is no waste in nature, science teaches us; neither is thereany in grace, says faith. We cannot always see the results, but they arethere 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 firstsuggestion to Rev. J. Ll. Jones, of Chicago, who soon after her deathwrote: "Why not try for a little memorial of her, to be accompanied withsome of the most touching and searching extracts from the letters bothreceived and written by her, and make it into a little booklet for theinstruction of Post Office Mission Workers?... Can you not make itsomething as touching as 'Miss Toosey,' and far more practical,—thatis, for our own little household of faith?... We do not want itprimarily as a missionary tool, but as a wee fragment of the spiritualhistory of the world,—something that will lift and touch the soul ofeverybody.... In short, give us an enlightened Miss Toosey; her missionbeing as much stronger as Sallie Ellis was more rational and mature thanthe original 'Miss Toosey'!"[Pg 2]
No one knowing Miss Ellis could read the touching little story of "MissToosey's Mission" without being struck by a resemblance in thecharacters, 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 powerlessand insignificant personality, through the force of a great yearning todo a bit of God's work in the world, achieved its longing far beyond itsfondest dreams. As I read the many letters from all over the countrythat have come since Miss Ellis's death, as I realize how the spiritualforce that burned in the soul of this small, feeble, seemingly helplesswoman reached out afar and touched many lives for their enduringennoblement, her life, so meagre and cramped in its outward aspect, sovivid and intense within and on paper, seems to me not without a touchof romance. To perpetuate a little longer the influence of that life isthe object of this sketch.
Sallie Ellis was born in Cincinnati, March 13, 1835. The old-fashionedname Sallie, at that time popular in the South and West, was[Pg 3] given herin ho