"In the long and honorable line of its [the First Church] ministers, there could have been none who more visibly illustrated the great Beatitude than Rufus Ellis. A certain something in him always suggested spotlessness; it was in his face, his dress, his manner, his high-bred courtesy, his ever-kindly manliness. A man to be remembered as one remembers some clear blue day of special grace and beauty; a minister who enriched his people with himself, — even the best of the sermon reaching them at least as much by eyes as by the ear. . . . We greatly need such men among us, — men whose presence and emphasis suggest religion, the deep things of the spirit, rather than their theology and christology, those shallower things of the spirit, while none the less they love these last and let us know it. We need such "conservatives "... among us. Not, then, for all was Rufus Ellis a prophet as to the minor matters; but for all he was the clear-faced man of God, for whom his city and the world are permanently a little better,—a nobleness to miss on Boston streets."
blessings
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