_Pres. Western Women's Unitarian Conf., Chicago, Ill._
In accordance with this request, Mrs. George Thornton, of
Cincinnati, read the following memorial before the Western Women's
Unitarian Conference, May 13, 1886:--
Such an occasion as this, full of words of good counsel and
cheer,--a reunion of the little band of women workers in the cause
of Liberal Christianity,--will be incomplete if we do not mention
one name, held in loving remembrance in the hearts of many here
present, and of a still greater number scattered far and wide,
whose lives have been touched to higher issues by the active
ministrations of our beloved co-worker, Miss Sallie Ellis, who has
laid down her work on earth and passed on to the great Hereafter.
When we recall the fragile form, so full of the Spirit's life,
which, rising above the many disabilities of physical suffering,
accomplished so much in the brief years allotted her, we take
courage, and thank God that we have had such spirits with us.
Nothing doubting that their work continues here and elsewhere,
though we know neither the manner nor conditions of its progress.
We who are cheered in moments of sorrow by the great faith that the
future of those who have passed behind "the veil which hath no
outward swing" will be but a continuance of the _best_, under
nobler conditions, rejoice, even in the midst of personal
bereavement, that Miss Ellis has entered into that rest, so nobly
won by her patient endurance of the heavy burdens laid upon
her,--burdens which yet never seemed to close her sympathy for
others, but only served to quicken her eagerness to work for the
extension of that vital faith she found so satisfying.
It is to her warm heart, and earnest desire to help others in the
midst of spiritual difficulties, that we owe the unique but most
efficacious method of reaching such through the medium of postal
communication.
Scientists tell us that each wavelet of sound, produced by the
tiniest cause, goes on in ever-widening circles of ether, to the
uttermost limits of creation. Had we but senses acute enough to
receive the sensation, how full of pulsing sound would all Nature
become! It seems to me that this keener sense, enabling her to
catch the questionings of troubled souls, became one of the great
compensations of Miss Ellis's later years. As the outer organs of
hearing became dulled to what was passing around her, the inner or
spiritual became more observant; and as we listened to the
correspondence which came to her from North and South, East and
West, from the home and the camp, from the teacher and the taught,
we seemed to stand in some great whispering-gallery, echoing with
the sighs and anxious inquiries of seekers after truth who sought
aid in solving the great problems of the soul's life. As from time
to time came back acknowledgments of gratitude for aid rendered,
either by her sympathizing letters or the Liberal literature which
she widely disseminated, we realized what a great lever had been
applied in this simple way to the spiritual needs of many.
It is in this phase of Miss Ellis's work that she has become better
known to the members of the Women's Auxiliary Conference; and it is
of this especially I have spoken to-day.
But the roots of this activity lie deeper, and this work was but
the fruitage of a life which drew its strength to suffer and
endure, as well as to labor and to wait, from those fountains of a
rational faith for whose extension we have met here this week.
To her it was the manna of life, and it was fitting that her last
years should have been spent in unselfish endeavor to extend its
influence.
Knowing how heartily she would have entered into the spirit of our
meetings during this Conference, we cannot leave unsaid the word of
tender remembrance which links her memory indissolubly with the
work of our Women's Auxiliary Conference. The little band who are
engaged in spreading the light of a higher faith, in lifting the
load of crude ideas in regard to our relations to God and humanity,
may surely feel that though our friend "has joined the choir
invisible," yet her work "lives on in lives made better by her
presence," still keeping alive the union with us who remain
behind,--a help and incentive to continued progress.
No better key-note of Miss Ellis's life can be given than in the
words of a poem copied by her into her diary, January, 1881. It
was taken from the "Woman's Journal," and was entitled:--