"She was the very messenger of God to me, and is inseparably associated with the most trying period of my life. The only conceptions of religion I had ever had were proving unreal and worthless, and no one offered anything as a substitute. As I look back, the peril of my situation seems much greater than it did at the time. I fear I should have become insincere, or, what is perhaps almost as bad, should have fallen into a sort of despairing scepticism. Heaven in mercy saved me from it; but I shall not forget that even Heaven might not have found a way to do this, had there been no Miss Ellis. It was but a little thing, a trifle, a brief notice in a daily paper, that in some way caught a careless reader's eye. But my whole life is changed in consequence. "And so, while you miss her in her place and in your work, in your church and social life, I, too, here in New England miss her. I feel as if something is gone out of my life and I have really one less reason for returning West when my school work is done. But I have if possible an additional incentive to a good life. I trust I shall hear that your work is still going on successfully. I assure you I shall never lose interest in your Mission, and shall never cease to regard it as in some sense a home into which I was adopted. I sincerely hope I shall never do it any discredit." In a letter to Mrs. Hunert, Miss Ellis's successor, he says:-- "Accept, please, my hearty congratulations, and my best wishes for your very abundant success. It is a great work indeed, one that cannot be easily over-estimated, and in which it seems to me you can accomplish a minister's work even, and a very successful minister's work at that. I wonder how large your congregation is now; that is, how many persons are in communication with you and your Mission.