Omaha daily bee., 1899-06-04

L want you to issue paper edition o
this story so that the price will not stant
in the way of people buying it," was the
instruction which Mr.. Sheldon gave to the
publisher. The publisher demurred. L
would make the book appear CHEAP" HI
said and his house could not afford to ge
reputation for publishing cheap" books
Mr. Sheldon insisted and the paper bount
edition was published. In just one year Il
was selling at the rate of LOO copies
day.
1t found its way to England and met will
immediate favor; twenty different publisher!
''pirated' it, as ii was not copyrighted II
England. Its sale far exceeded even that II
America, and a recent letter from an Eng.
lish publishing house says that 5000, ,OO(
copies of Mr. Sheldons books have been solo
in Great Britain during the last few months
the greater part of them being "In Hi:
Steps" which has been issued in twenty
editions, ranging in price from a penny up
In twelve month Charles NJ Sheldon has
leaped from obscurity to a position as one
OF the foremost religious authors of the day.
But Notwithstanding the honors which his
admirers have attempted to heap upon him,
he Is unchanged in all respects. He has
received repeated calls to rich eastern
churches, but in all of his work he puts to
himself the question made prominent in his
book What would Jesus do?" and he has
preferred to remain with his own little con-
gregation.
Mr.. Sheldon is still comparatively young
man. He is a native of Wellsville, N. Y,
where he was born in 1857. A large part of
his early life was spent on a Dakota farm
and he has much of the spirit and dash of
the west His father who is also a minister
farmed during the week days and did mis-
sionary work on Sundays. He attended
school at Yankton and when about Is wrote
several stories which were published in the
Yankton papers.
"And those youthful Stories" said his
father recently, ''are just as interesting, in
my opinion, as the ones he writes now"
How He Was Educated.
Mr.. Sheldon was educated at Phillips
academy, Andover, Mass; Brown university
and at Andover Theological seminary, gradu-
atinG from the latter institution in 1885.
After summer in Europe he entered the
ministry and began preaching at Waterbury,
VT But the spirit OF the west was In him.
So when he received call to become the
pastor of the newly established Central Con-
gregational church in Topeka in 1883 he
gladly accepted it as the opening he had
been waiting foT, His church began with
sixty members; now 1t numbers more than
300. His first work was to build a modest
little church, in which began his strikingly
original career. He was dissatisfied with
the quality of Christianity he saw in many
professed Christians He wanted to know
what ideas the masses of the people had on
the subject of Christianity and he wanted to
find out about their daily lives and occupa-
tions.
With this desire in his heart he asked
his congregation TO excuse him from pas
toral work for three months, and his con-
gregation saw little of him except during
church services. He was at home scarcely
any of the time, but very few people knew
what he was doing. 1t was characteristic
of the man. He was getting acquainted"
Topeka is the headquarters of the Atchi-
son, Topeka g. Santa Fe railroad. Hundreds
OF men are employed in the railroad shops
and hundreds of trainmen make their head
quarters there. 1t was among these that
Mr. Sheldon spent much of his time. He
obtained an employees pass from the rail-
road company and dressed as an employe.
Tie made trips up and down the road in
company with the trainmen, learning their
ways and drawing out their ideas on every
conceivable subject. especially on religion,
After that he spent week or two with
the physicians of Topeka, studying them,
He read their books and visited their
patients with them. Another week was
spent with the lawyers in their offices and