"During my pastorate of the Unitarian Church in Cincinnati, Mr. and
Mrs. Rowland Ellis were valued parishioners of mine, and their
children were all baptized by me. It was a lovely group of little
folks, and the spirit of that consecration has gone largely through
all their lives, and given them, I believe, the Christian flavor.
They have, too, been very warmly united as a family, and in health
and sickness, in life and death, they have borne strong testimony
to the blessed anchorage of a positive religious faith.
"They were also diligent attendants on the Sunday school in the
basement of the old church. Sallie's bright face and upright
attitude was to be seen in her place as sure as the Sunday came.
"After I left Cincinnati I saw her but seldom, but on those
occasions she always spoke of the earlier times in the church and
the Sunday school with a warmth and glow of memory that showed that
they had been real points of life to her mind and character. And
especially after her deafness became a chastening hand laid upon
her character, and family sorrows and bereavements followed in the
train, it was plain that she found her religious trust the one
thing needful."
Within another year business reverses swept away Mr. Ellis's entire
fortune. As he had meantime married a lady who proved a most capable and
devoted mother to the younger children, Sallie, released from domestic
cares, felt that she ought to do something to assist her father. "She
was so modest," says a friend, "I don't think it ever occurred to her
that she could teach school. But she said there was one thing she knew
she could do, and do well, and that was, to dance." So Miss Sallie
became a dancing-teacher, having classes of children in their mothers'
parlors.
Another friend (whose boys, now stalwart men in the church, were among
Miss Ellis's pupils) says of her: "She was a lovely dancing-teacher. She
not only taught the children to dance well, but she taught them such
gentle, lovely manners. Indeed, the significant thing in Miss Ellis's
life, to me, was her faithfulness. Whatever her hand found to do, she
did, and did well. Because she had been so faithful at dancing-school,
she was able to be so successful a teacher. Because, when taught sewing,
she tried so hard to do her best, she became such a beautiful sewer, and
was able to teach sewing;" for a sewing-class was another expedient of
those days.
Her father moved to Chicago in 1851, where he resided three years. There
Miss Ellis attended Mr. Shippen's church, taught a Sunday-school class,
and had a class of newsboys evenings. After the return to Cincinnati,
while Miss Ellis was at the sea-shore, she began to experience a painful
roaring in the ears. Hearing, never quite perfect, was soon almost
totally 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]
[Footnote 1: The death of two brothers, of a dear little niece, and of a
fondly loved sister,--a woman beloved by all who knew her, who died only
about a year before Miss Ellis, leaving five motherless girls--were
among the trials of her maturer years.]
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]
[Footnote 2: The kindness of Mr. Frank R. Ellis, of Cincinnati, Miss
Ellis's youngest brother, enables us to place the portrait in this
book.]
Rev. Charles Noyes was settled as Unitarian pastor in Cincinnati in
1872. To him Miss Ellis always attributed her first missionary impulse.