"I received the memorial of Miss Ellis. I thank you sincerely for
sending it. It is very touching and beautiful, and delineates just
such a character as I conceived hers to be. I had received the sad
intelligence of her death through the 'Christian Register' before
the memorial reached me, and it was like the shock of learning of
the death of a personal friend. I have great reason to be grateful
to her and to cherish her memory; for through her I have been led
to embrace and to love the broad and charitable Unitarian belief.
My reason had struggled for years against the great--to
me--stumbling-blocks of Orthodoxy, and had finally abandoned the
conflict and settled down into a kind of unthinking unbelief,
feeling that it was no use to try to subscribe to any Orthodox
creed, and not knowing where to look for any more hopeful, helpful,
or reasonable spiritual aid. About four years ago, I think it was,
I saw the notice in the paper which is referred to in the memorial,
and Then ensued a very pleasant correspondence ... wrote Miss Ellis
asking for Unitarian papers, etc. much like that with a dear
familiar friend, and she grew to be like one to me, or rather was
that almost from the first. She put so much of her real self into
her letters that they were like a living presence. So full she was
of true Christian love and feeling, so ever ready to forget her
own sorrows and sufferings in her sympathy with the sorrows of
others, that thus unconsciously truth and love and
self-forgetfulness were stamped upon every line that came from her
mind and hand. Truly she was 'A Little Pilgrim,' bearing good
tidings to the fainting and weary, and lifting them up with her own
heavenly strength. Sacred be her memory! Through her I became a
subscriber to the 'Christian Register,' which is to me a standard
of excellence in a religious, moral, and intellectual point of
view. I do not want to be sectarian, as that is not my ideal of a
good Unitarian,--I mean in an 'offensive' light; but it really
seems to me that even Unitarian wit and fun have a refinement and
exquisite touch of humor which cannot be equalled among Orthodox
publications. The 'Register,' however, is the only Unitarian paper
that I am well acquainted with. A widowed sister-in-law who is with
me also became a Unitarian through Miss Ellis. She is a subscriber
to 'The Unitarian.' We also have Channing's Works and the 'Oriental
Christ,' which I bought through Miss Ellis, and some of Freeman
Clarke's books; so that we have the companionship of much of the
best Unitarian thought, although we are denied the privilege of a
personal ministry."