tee ae Fe ty A Sas are ir ont: 2 5 Eran Wee eta me ty Se, é : oe Fy £ ; ase aes ‘ j Be : : : ‘ : ; ex vob: eats tf. : ees 7 ; 2 - ore Seen nate. ¥ 7 Ge oo mt ; ' aay ny Pers ! sia NPN ¥ War ‘ Wi CHARLES M. SHELDON HIS LIFE STORY ‘ ; ie in ‘ <«- » ms : e oe, eS % c- > ewe if vo ehnr j us hee - _ v: ‘ ' ‘a eee ou an ee > CY or; cy ORE eae 1920. CHARLES M. $ ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS NEw SB vork GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Se g erecnyh SHELDQN es HIS LIFE STORY SL SEE COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY CHARLES M. SHELDON —_A— PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEDICATED TO MY WIFE Who has encouraged me when I did my poorest, inspired me when I did my best, and helped me all along the way in between: this story would never have been written if she had not outlined it and then filled it in. res oy x et i er As im Ata oi ai TTA TO THE AUDIENCE This simple story has been written for three reasons. First, because I wanted to tell it. Second, because friends asked for it. Third, because the events and incidents seem to be related to certain history that is more than anything in my own, so that whatever might at first seem to be all personal, is, in reality, a part of so many others’ life story that I have been constrained to tell my own story for the sake of many other stories that have been in the process of making by the side of my own. No life is of any value apart from that of others. All biography is the picture of interrelated lives. That is what this story is. There has been no at- tempt on my part to write a literary treatise. If literature is what the dictionary says,—''the pro- ductions of a country or of a period, specially those that are notable for beauty or force of style,” the reader will not find it in this book. But may I hope that what is told will be of interest to the reader, and add to his happiness and his good will towards all mankind. CHARLES M. SHELDON. fi 5 1 Ay P A Ne At Autti) hte Se hee te, (oi CHARLES M. SHELDON HIS LIFE STORY Dates and Other Information Born, February 26, 1857, at Wellsville, New York. Father, Stewart Sheldon, son of a New York farmer, and Congregational Minister and Mis- sionary Pioneer. Mother, Sarah Ward, daughter of a New York country doctor. Boyhood, until 1877 spent in his father’s parishes, Wellsville, N. Y., Central Falls, R. I., Chilli- cothe, Missouri; Leroy, N. Y., Lansing, Michi- gan, and on a ranch in South Dakota. Schools: Public School grades, Yankton Academy, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., graduating 1879, Brown University, Providence, R. I., grad- uating 1883, Andover Theological Seminary, eraduating 1886. First Trip to Great Britain, Summer and Fall 1886. Began ministry at Waterbury, Vermont, as pastor of Congregational Church, 1886. Called to Central Congregational Church, Topeka, Kansas, 1888. ix x CHARLES M. SHELDON Began service there January, 1889. Married to Mary Abby Merriam, 1891. Birth of our only child, Merriam Ward Sheldon, 1897. Wrote first story, and read it to Sunday evening congregation, 1891. ‘Title of story, ‘Richard Bruce, or the Life that Now Is.” From 1891 to 1919 wrote and read to Sunday evening audience thirty stories. “Tn His Steps” written and read to Sunday evening audience, 1896 and 1897. Published as serial in Chicago Advance same time. Published in book form, ten cent paper edition, 1897. Owing to supposed defective copyright published by fifty different publishers in the United States and Europe. Over 22,000,000 copies have been published in over twenty different languages. Edited and controlled the Topeka Daily Capital one week, as a distinctively Christian daily, March, 1900. Circulation, 367,000 daily. Made second trip to Great Britain for prohibition - campaign, 1900. Third trip International Christian Endeavor Con- vention, 1908. New Church Building dedicated, 1910. Made Minister at Large to conduct conferences, IgI2. CHARLES M. SHELDON xt Invited to Australia and New Zealand for prohi- bition campaign, 1914. Member of Flying Squadron under Governor J. Frank Hanly, in the interest of national prohibi- tion, from October, 1914, to May, 1915. Called to Central Church pastorate again, 1915. War Service, Great Britain, 1917 and 1918, under the direction of Sir George Hunter, of Newcastle- on-[yne, to conduct a campaign for national pro- hibition to protect American boys from drink en route to France. Resigned from Central Church, 1919. Accepted position as Editor-in-Chief, Christian Herald, New York, 1920. Degree of D.D. conferred by Brown University, 1923. Forty year honor alumnus, class of 1883. Edited “Everyday Bible,” 1924. Resigned from Editor-in-Chief position on the Christian Herald, 1924. Retained as Contributing Editor, 1925. Present occupation, Lecturer and writer, and Preacher. Address, 1621 College Avenue, Topeka, Kansas. Rg batt yA ni San a Bde é Vay er Aa Mf De To THE AUDIENCE CONTENTS ° ° ° ° e' e ‘DATES AND OTHER INFORMATION . . . CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER ONE Two THREE Four FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN BOYHOOD : ° ° ° SCHOOL LIFE ° . ° THE FIRST MINISTRY . THE STORY OF “IN HIS OTROS ANE ML enrol ae THE STORY OF A CHRIS- TIAN DAILY THE STORY OF THE FLY- ING SQUADRON THE TOPEKA MINISTRY THE TRAVEL CHAPTER THE KANSAS CHAPTER THE MINISTER’S CALL- TINGE eee he aero oan THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A ROMANCE BY MRS. SHELDON . : ° . TWELVE TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH. . PAGE Vil 1x 19 39 66 97 II2 144 163 199 234 262 276 289 ILLUSTRATIONS Rey. Charles M. Sheldon Topeka—1920. . .. . .. . | Frontispiece Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., 1879 NOE OO ae tel 48 Andover mveniocieal Seminary ennai IVPASS oF OD ONC as 49 Topeka, 1889. Ree Inines of ieee i Central Congregational Church . ae OO Where Central Congregational Church, To- peka, Kansas, Began 1889 Le SO Central Congregational Church, ae Kansas, 1925 nie uk OE Where “In His Steps” was written. Porch of Author’s Home, Topeka, Kansas, 1896 104 The Author and 36 Different Editions of ‘In His Steps” POPME RPM Sh ream ya ay! “In His Steps” Translations . 105 25 Separate Editions ‘In His Steps” 105 100,000 Subscriptions to Topeka Daily Cap- ital, March, 1900 . Piet TOL CES aV Xvi ILLUSTRATIONS Sarah Ward Sheldon. The Mother of Charles M. Sheldon . A oN Father and Son, 1915 . Mary Abby Merriam (Mrs. Charles M. Sheldon) . MEMES ME SEE sO Uy. Merriam Ward Sheldon . Rey. Charles M. Sheldon, Forty Year Man. Class of 1886. Degree D.D. by Brown University, 1924 176. EL Tay 280 281 304 BOYHOOD 33 Texas cow and been sewed up with a three-cornered harness needle, and perhaps the only individual in the history of surgery to have that distinction. And in case any one is inclined to hesitate over this opera- tion I can only say I have as evidence the scar to show. The blue clay was applied every day and seemed to have healing qualities, hardening to such a degree as the heat of the wound went into it that mother had to use hot water to moisten it before it would come off to make room for a fresh handful. I do not like to say how long I was an invalid, but I am afraid I prolonged the period of convalescence a little on account of my eagerness to finish one of the Waverley novels which sister Alice secured for me, mentally commenting on the adventures of the char- acters in the book which was Ivanhoe, and saying to myself as I read of knightly duels and breathless attacks on castles, that after all, Scott’s heroes had never been hooked by a Texas cow as I had. And withal I fervently prayed the cow would never be found and brought back. To ease the mind of any one who cares to know I will say that several weeks afterwards we did find her in the brush down near the Missouri, but we could not catch her, and finally one of the neighbors who had been a cowboy, by father’s consent shot her for beef. We had some of the steak that winter, and while it was tough, I ate my piece without criticism, after the usual words of thanks had been said by father. 34 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Three winters while on the farm I went into the little town of Yankton on the Missouri, and attended school. Part of the time I rode in on the mustang pony that had towed me at the end of his tail across the swollen swale, and part of the time I walked the six miles and did my share of the chores when I got home. The first school I attended was taught in a little building used part of the time as a law office. My teacher was my own uncle, Joseph Ward, my mother’s brother, afterwards President of Yankton College. That winter when I started in to get my first schooling uncle was pastor of the little home missionary church. He was the only teacher in town, and out of his school grew an academy where the next two winters I continued all the education I had in Dakota. I would like to say as I pass along that Uncle Joe was and is my man hero. He could have gone to congress or been elected Governor of Da- kota, but he stayed on in his parish, the most un- selfish, childlike, sacrificing minister of the Gospel in the Northwest. When I hear ministers complain- ing of their problems and of the burdens of their parishes, I see Uncle Joe in that little law office teaching that small group of raw material like me and then going to a sick parishioner’s and sawing wood for him and carrying it into the house before going home to prepare his next Sunday sermon. My academy school life started out rather awk- wardly for me seeing I was an unusually bashful and BOYHOOD 35 retiring lad, because I found when the roll of my first class was called I was the only boy in a class of seventeen girls. Few boys could be spared, off the frontier farms, and that is the reason it seemed to me that first term I was going to a female academy. But I managed to get on fairly well, especially when I found out later that the girls were willing to ex- change their knowledge for mine. I was and am very dull in the department of mathematics. There were two girls who excelled in that deadly course, and I have always noticed that when girls are good mathematicians they are superior to men or boys. I had a great liking for Latin and by a mutual ar- rangement with the mathematicians who could not translate their Livy and Czsar I wrote out their lessons for the help they gave me in working out Sturm’s theorem and other mathematical puzzles. It looked like a fair exchange but I have never gone into the ethics of the case as perhaps I might have done later on when I got into the theological sem- inary. I soon found that I was brooding over the possi- bility of going east to enter Phillips Academy, An- dover, Massachusetts. My Uncle Joe had gradu- ated there and the stories he told of his school life entered my imagination and after long talks with the home folks they finally agreed to my going on. But I needed some Greek if I was going into the senior class at Andover, and my academy teacher, 386 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY who happened to be a Yale graduate, began to take an interest in my school plans. Seeing I was the only student in the Academy taking a course in Greek and that I needed some place to study and recite, away from the noise and distraction of the one room the Academy boasted, he had built for my special case a small room, so-called, in one corner of the big room. It was nothing more than a matched floor board siding put up without any top. It had a very small door, and inside, a bench just wide enough and long enough to hold the teacher and myself. I wrote out the Greek paradigms on a small blackboard, but some of the compound words were so long, like ‘‘Aperaskuotatosseisin,”’ that the blackboard was not wide enough to hold them, and I ran the syllables over onto the door and when the door was opened the word was broken in two. But in that confined place I first made the acquaintance with Homer, and the teacher whose knees literally touched mine as we sat together in that boarded up corner had enough humor to say to me one day that it was a case of “Greek meets Greek,” and in the battle royal that went on there I owe him thanks for the patience and interest he showed in behalf of the one student (I cannot say ‘“‘scholar’”’) who had ever taken a Greek course in that school. Before I left Dakota for Andover I joined my Uncle Joe’s little church in Yankton. My father and mother both had serious talks with me about BOYHOOD 37 conversion. ‘The last winter I spent on the farm Uncle Joe was holding ‘‘protracted’”’ meetings in a small hall in the town. Night after night we all drove in from the farm to attend these meetings, getting home some time after midnight. Father was specially anxious for me to make a public confession of my Christian faith before the meetings closed. Night after night I heard the invitation from Uncle Joe to any who wanted to confess Christ to stand up. I felt the need of making such a public stand, but I am obliged to say that for several weeks I lived an inward life of wretched fear. Religion was a terrible experience it seemed to me. But I could not escape the conviction that if I was ever to become a Christian I must let the world know it. The night when I did by sheer strength pull my trembling body up from that bench in that little hall and stand with a few others, I had a mental relaxation that was like a physical weight taken suddenly off of my spirit. I had at least redeemed myself from the charge of cowardice that had been torturing me, and the ordeal of meeting the committee that examined candidates seemed less fearful as I looked forward to church membership. When that time came I faced the circle of deacons with some trepidation, but there were other boys with me, and while I am frank to say I did not un- derstand then, and do not now, some of the doc- trinal questions put to me and to which I had to give - 88 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY some kind of assent before I could join the church, I went on to the actual day when I was received into full membership and partook of my first communion, with what I believe was a true acceptance of the terms of Christian discipleship as I understood them. My father and mother were supremely happy that day. I was going away from home, soon, entering new worlds of temptation. Now that I had taken the vows of the Christian and was a member of the church those dangers became less terrifying to them, and distinctly less for myself. I can see mother as she stood by the door that day when I went into town for the last time to take the train for Chicago and the East. And if ever a boy began a new and unusual chapter in his life with a cloud of direction by day and a pillar of en- lightening fire by night I was the boy, breaking the home ties, but bound by them all through the pass- ing years as in the vision of the farm I went again and again into that end of the log house called the “parlor,” and saw father and mother kneeling there at the family altar praying for the absent lad every morning at family prayers. CHAPTER TWO SCHOOL LIFE Up to the time I left the Dakota homestead farm I had not traveled to any extent, except when father changed his parish from Wellsville, New York, where I was born, to Central Falls, Rhode Island, after that to Chillicothe, Missouri, and then to Lan- sing, Michigan. While pastor of a church there father’s health broke, and when my uncle Joseph Ward stopped to see us on his way to Dakota with his young bride to take up his work in a home mis- sionary church, I was ten years old. Uncle was urging my father and mother to plan to come out to the new territory and live the health- ful life of the pioneer. I listened to all the talk at the table, and said nothing. But the next morning, the day Uncle and Aunt were to start for the wild west, I came down from my little bedroom with a small satchel packed with a few things I wanted to take and said, “‘I have decided to go out to Dakota with Uncle Joe.” That settled it. The family agreed to let me go on ahead with Uncle and Aunt, and live with them until the rest of the folks could pack up and follow. 39 40 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY But it was several months before they arrived. When they did come, father took up a homestead claim, bought a span of mules and a lumber wagon and a breaking plow, went down on the river and cut cottonwood trees into logs, and hauled them out to the quarter section where the house was built, and where my early boyhood was spent. Father recov- ered his full health, lived to be the Home Mission- ary Superintendent for a territory bigger than all Massachusetts and Connecticut, established over 100 churches, most of which are thriving to-day, and lived to ninety years, surviving all the doctors who told him he was going out to Dakota to die. I am throwing this in here partly to explain how hard it has been always to kill off early members of our family, and also to anticipate the chapter on travel which will be found somewhere in this story. Beginning with that lonesome journey from the prairie of Dakota to Andover, Massachusetts, as the years passed it seems to have been a part of the pro- gram of my life to be going somewhere a good part of the time. Father had the same wanderlust as a young man, the only one of a large family of boys and girls born on a farm in western New York to leave the farm. | I reached Phillips Academy in time for the fall term, a perfect stranger to every one and every- thing. As I went up the long hill to the Academy buildings and registered in the little office where SCHOOL LIFE 41 groups of new boys were waiting in homesick poses, I began to realize the fact that I was much older than most of them. I was nineteen, at least three years in advance of the majority at Phillips. But while I was rangy and muscular, thanks to the rugged farm life, | was immature in my own thought of my- self, and exceedingly diffident at this stage of my de- velopment. I did not feel any older in years than the youngest boy in the school, although I found after the first plunge into the school stream that I was looked upon as a good deal older. ‘This had its advantages as well as its drawbacks, but I did not discover either until later in the term. I was assigned for my room to the upper story of a small frame building in a row of similar buildings called Latin Commons. They looked very much like the rows of factory tenements I had seen as I passed small factory towns on my way to Andover from Boston. The Registrar introduced me to another boy who would be my roommate, as the rules of the Commons did not allow any boy to have a room all to himself. We looked each other over very much as two strange dogs on their first meeting and I made up my mind that if it should come to any physical settlement of differences I could easily argue him to my way of thinking. He was slightly taller than I was, but flabby of build and wobbly on his feet. We went up to our room together and unpacked our things after agreeing peaceably to the choice of 42 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY bedrooms. Which was not difficult as there was no choice. There was one study room for both of us, and the two bedrooms opened immediately from it, just large enough to hold a single bed and leave a small piece of floor barely large enough to hold a washstand, and permit a student to walk in be- tween the bed and the wall if he went in sidewise. There was a window at the end, looking out over the campus toward Lawrence. This window (I use the term generically, for it applied to every window in every one of the Commons) was well ventilated, owing to the fact that the panes had been broken and reset so many times that there was almost no sash left between the panes. We found also in a short time that the principal use of the window be- sides ventilating the bedroom was to use as a con- venient outlet for our ashes, throwing them out just when a group of students might be coming around the corner of the building, and the wind was favor- able. The first thing my new chum did was to take out very long safety pins from his bag and pin down the sheets and the one quilt of his bed to the mattress next the wall, and a similar row pinned in a like man- ner to the foot. He explained as he did it that it would save making up his bed every morning or night, as all he had to do on retiring was to open one corner and draw himself in, and in the morning re- verse the process as he came out. Besides, he said, SCHOOL LIFE 43 the bed clothing was short and the pins would pre- vent the covers from being pulled off. It was an in- genious plan and it seemed to work with him, but I had been brought up differently and I did not fol- low his example. Several cold winter nights when the rigorous New England winter was at its height, and I lay shivering under bed clothes that were too short to cover my length, I wished T had. By mutual agreement we made what we thought was a fair division of the room work. I agreed to sweep out the rooms and get the water, and bring up the coal if he would build the fire, and see that it did not go out when we did. He also agreed to sweep down our stairs when necessary. ‘This agree- ment went no farther, he was strong to declare, than to sweep down our flight leaving the results on the next landing which was directly in front of the door of the two boys who lived in the room under ours. I do not recall exactly how it happened that first winter, or what was the exact technicality that made the event possible, but during one of the most frigid weeks, the fire in the little stove went out one night and in the morning my roommate refused to make it again. I think he claimed that I had not lived up to my agreement to bring the proper amount of water. But in any case we parted company at that point. He refused to rebuild the fire and I would not. For a whole week we sat around bundled up in heavy over- coats or took refuge in the other fellows’ rooms to 44 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY get warm. One night while I was trying to write a letter home the ink froze on my pen and the water in the bedroom wash basin was a chunk of ice. The Principal, Dr. Bancroft, at last in some way heard of the deadlock, and actually called on us one evening as we sat at our little desks, the icy breath from our mouths streaming across the room, as we sat there in silence, each one firm in his stubbornness to freeze to death before he would build that fire. After hear- ing all the evidence, for if any man was the soul of justice in that boys’ school that great teacher was, he quietly told my roommate to build the fire and he stayed in the room until he did it. Of course I felt vindicated, and I would have indulged in a chuckle of self-satisfaction if the Doctor had not said as he went out of the room, “Sheldon, I didn’t think you were such a fool, even if you did have the right of it | This made my roommate feel so happy that we both shook hands and almost sat on the stove to- gether, while I dwelt long and silently on that say- ing of my afterward revered teacher. At the same time I don’t know to this day what effect it would have had on my roommate if I had given in and per- formed a duty which by right belonged to him. It was a fine point in casuistry, but it was also a wonder that neither of us caught cold during that absurd week. ‘There must have been some ethical value to it all, for my peculiar roommate and I for a while at SCHOOL LIFE 45 least seemed to get on better, although I never under- stood him, and I think he often wondered a good deal over the queer sort of fellow he had been quartered on. I soon found that my school preparation for Andover was not sufficient to allow me to enter the Senior class, and so I had to drop down into the Middle class, which meant two years at Phillips instead of one as I had planned. I was disappointed at first, but in a short time I was more than con- tented. ‘Those two years at Phillips Academy, An- dover, will always seem to me to be the most enjoy- able school years of my life. It was a genuine boys’ school, with plenty of study and fun mixed with the proportion of study to fun in the ratio of about seven to one. But the study itself was fun in the right sense. ‘The teachers, beginning with that prince of teachers, the Principal, C. F. P. Bancroft, were good teachers judged by any standard. We called the Principal ‘“Banty”’ but it was a term of affection, not of jest, and when he rose to make his morning chapel talk every Fri- day morning there was not one of the reckless, thoughtless and sometimes coarse and often home- sick boys in that room who did not gaze upon that noble head and shoulders with a feeling of awe and respect, mingled often with a degree of wholesome fear. If England has her Arnold, America has her 46 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Bancroft. It does not do any harm to the facts to make this comparison. The folks at home could help pay part of my ex- penses, but not all, and I soon found myself in a group of boys working their way through. One winter, the first, I swept out the Academy building, for which I received three dollars a week. It was a large structure with many classrooms that seemed built with special reference to collecting dirt and dust. I swept out the entire building on Wednes- day and Saturday afternoons. It took me until supper time to do it. I have a vague remembrance of sometimes stopping at my task and looking out of a window at a baseball game going on between Phillips, Andover and Phillips, Exeter, or a football game between the Harvard Freshmen and our team, and wishing I could be there. But the three dollars a week paid my board at the Shawsheen Club for a week and one dollar and a quarter over. Board at the Shawsheen was one seventy-five a week, and there was a roar from the boys if the steward let it run over that amount. 7 The second winter I secured the job of mending the broken glass in the Commons, for which I re- ceived a New England shilling for each pane, six- teen and two-thirds cents. A good deal of glass was broken during the winter on account of snowball fights around the buildings. There was a rumor, I can assure you all without foundation, that the SCHOOL LIFE AT boy who mended the glass started some of these fights by throwing snowballs on the boys out of the windows of the Commons. What I do know is that it was a lucrative trade while it lasted, but I was greatly put to it often to make the glass stay in the window owing to the fact that after several resettings there was really no wood left to hold the putty which was the only thing that held the panes in place, and that meant more putty which meant cut- ting into my profits. That same winter I also had two other jobs which I think of with mingled feelings of pleasure and grief. One was pumping the organ Sundays at the Seminary Chapel services morning and afternoon, and the other was waiting on Professor Austin Phelps of the Theological Seminary every evening to give him massage for an hour and then for an- other hour read out loud to him for the purpose of putting him to sleep. He was troubled with hypo- chondria and insomnia, and the massage and the reading combined seemed to fit his case. [ was not yet all through my physical growth, and when Sunday came I was healthily tired after all the week’s study and chores. If I had been allowed to do what I often felt the need of doing I would have slept a good part of Sunday. But chapel attendance was compulsory both morning and after- noon. To add to my necessary income I secured the job (I use the word “job” with discretion), of 48 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY blowing the organ at both services and I think without displaying any undue egotism I earned my salary. The place where the blower handle was put was,in a very hot and dark corner, between the back of the organ and the curtain which hung between the organ and the pulpit. It is no exaggeration to say that the preachers at the chapel services some- times preached very long and not always very ex- citing sermons to us boys who ‘were not interested in the coming controversy over the second probation of the heathen or the two Isaiahs. One very hot Sunday afternoon in my hot coop I fell asleep over the handle of the blower, and did not wake up in time to hear the preacher give out the closing hymn. The organist, who by «he way was a very pretty teacher at the Fem Sem Academy near ours, and with whom for several weeks I believe I was desperately in love, although she must have been fifteen years my senior, started to play, but there was a painful silence. Every boy in the congrega- tion waked up. . She tried again, with the same re- sult. Then she came around to where I was sleep- ing the sleep of the just and shook my shoulder. I waked up with a start from Love’s fond dream, — and seized the handle of the blower and worked it so vigorously that that hymn must have been a staccato of some triumphal king’s entry into a cap- tured town, although if I remember the hymn rightly it began with the words ‘“‘Calm me, O Lord, and PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASS. 1879. AGE 22. ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ANDOVER, Mass. 1886. SCHOOL LIFE 49 keep me calm.” But I am sure that I never fell asleep again at my post, although with some mel- ancholy I realized that my feelings for the pretty organist faded away from that day. An organ blower cannot have his shoulder shaken by the or- ganist without creating a coolness between the shaker and the shaken. My other task at Professor Austin Phelps’ was so unusual and so interesting that I hardly know how to describe it. But this is what I actually did every night all winter. I reported at the Pro- fessor’s house, a beautiful specimen of colonial arch- itecture, a few minutes before seven o'clock. I was let into the house by one of two old ser- vants who were devoted passionately to the Pro- fessor, and at once I went upstairs to the huge square bedroom where the Professor would be al- ready retired. For one exact hour, from seven to eight I gave him a massage treatment, after he had initiated me into the particular movements he wanted me to learn. I mastered these within a week and after that he let me continue the treatment with only now and then an occasional word of direc- tion. At eight o’clock I started to read out loud in the book he selected, and I read until nine o’clock. Gen- erally he would begin to fall asleep shortly after I began the reading, but my instructions were to go on reading until the hour was up. It may sound 50 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY almost incredible and it does even to me now, but during that winter at the Professor’s I read out loud, generally with no other listener than my own self, the whole of Bancroft’s ‘“‘History of the United States” as far as the volumes were published, all of Motley’s ‘‘Rise of the Dutch Republic,” all of De Quincey, Charles Lamb’s essays, several plays of Shakespeare, and a good part of Milton’s “‘Paradise Lost.” When I left the room and went downstairs, I would sometimes be invited by one of the servants to stop and drink a glass of cold milk or eat a sand- wich. At such times Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, the Professor’s daughter of whom I stood in awe be- cause she was a noted author, would speak to me, and ask me to stay long enough to write a few letters for her to her fishermen friends in Gloucester. She paid me for this, although I would have pre- ferred to do it for the great honor I felt in being her amanuensis. By the time I had come back to my room in the Commons it would be half past nine, and I would have several lessons to get before going to bed. For all this I received fifty cents a night, so that adding one dollar the seminary trustees gave me for blowing the organ when I was awake, the money received for mending glass and extra amounts I earned for pumping water for a number of boarding houses, and blacking boots Saturday nights for some SCHOOL LIFE 51 of the more dressy teachers I managed to save enough out of my expenses for board and fuel and clothing and books to go down to Boston occasion- ally and see the sights of a great city. There was a famous old book stall on Washing- ton Street called The Archway. On the few occa- sions when I went to Boston I always found my way to this spot and browsed among the new and second hand books, occasionally buying one. There were bargains at The Archway and my pocket book, even with the income I was earning, made me a bargain hunter, and besides my Scotch-Irish inheritance of saving was more pronounced than it has been in later years. Going over the shelves on a late afternoon when I had gone in on a Saturday at the beginning of the Christmas vacation when most of the boys had gone home, I came across a large red bound book of which I had heard and wanted very much to read, ‘Tes Miserables.”” It was translated by Cournal, and bound in strong fashion, with clear type and good paper. [ inquired the price and it was an even dollar. I gave the bookman the dollar, and walked out on the street, proud of my purchase, and antici- pating a rare treat in the reading as I was almost alone in my room for two weeks. My roommate lived somewhere in New Hampshire and had de- parted, leaving me with the freedom of the three rooms and nothing to do but build the fire. 52 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY But I was only a step on the sidewalk when I felt in my pocket and realized that I had given nearly all the money I had for “Les Miserables,” and had only seventeen cents left. ‘The fare from Boston to Andover on the Boston and Maine was sixty-three cents. The distance was twenty-one miles by rail and twenty-three by road. For a minute I debated on the question of taking the book back and asking for my dollar. I was a total stranger in the city. None of the schoolboys were with me. I had not eaten anything since morning, and it was beginning to drizzle over a crust of snow. But I finally decided to keep “Les Miserables,” and walk to Andover over the railroad track. Which I did, getting there after getting a cup of coffee and a sandwich, at about two o’clock in the morning. Fortunately the drizzle did not develop into anything worse than a scattering sleet storm. I had a good overcoat and the book suffered no harm. When I had reached my room, I built a good fire, lighted my German student lamp, pushed my small desk up near the stove, opened ‘‘Les Misera- bles” and finished the first book, Fantine, by the time the winter dawn light came in to remind me that it was time to go to bed. I finished the whole book before the holidays were over, and read it again during the spring term. After getting into the Theological seminary four years later I read it out SCHOOL LIFE 58 loud to my college chum who had come back to Andover to teach Greek in the Academy, while I was a theologue across the street. His eyes were poor and in the evening he would come over to my room to rest himself while I read far into the night the tragic story of Jean Valjean. My class at Phillips was the class of ’79. It numbered over 60 and immediately on graduating it scattered, going to Yale, Amherst, Harvard, Williams, Princeton, and Brown. Nearly every member of the class went on to some college. Six of us went on down to Brown University, Provi- dence, and another period, lasting four years, of school life began for me. I left Andover with gen- uine regret. Those two years mean more to me than almost any other two years of my school life of nine years in all, not counting the school in Dakota. Perhaps because it was a new experience coming off that wild farm. Perhaps because of the real look at learning which my teachers gave me. For after all, it was the teachers at Andover that I have always held longest in my esteem. And [ still entertain the idea that a boys’ school is valuable not for its mechanical and scientific equipment, but for its teaching force. I went to Brown University partly because my Uncle Joe had graduated there, and partly to be with my classmate, Mr. M. C. Gile, who afterwards became the head of the Academy at Colorado Col- 54 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY lege. We roomed together for the four years, and we were together at Andover for three years more while he taught in the Academy and I was learning Hebrew and church history in the Seminary. Nine years we were together. I loved him with a David- Jonathan affection. He is a part of my whole uni- versity life. When he died out there in Colorado a few years ago, I lost my college “chum” and there has been none other since to take his place. I suppose one college experience is much like an- other. Mine had no unusual happenings. Among the things that stand out for me are the struggles I had to understand mathematics. I had no trouble with trigonometry or calculus, or geometry, but for some reason which my teachers never found out I could not do anything with algebraic problems. Night after night I sat up with them, but it was like sitting up with a corpse, but it did not resemble a wake. The week before the graduation of my class | wentto the President and told him I knew I could not pass the examinations in mathematics, and was not entitled to a degree, but that I con- sidered the four years in the university had given me all I deserved. I heard afterwards that he took my case up with the professor of mathematics, and the Board of Trustees, and in some way, when Commencement day came I did receive a degree, and it was worded just like my chum’s who was the brilliant mathematician of the class. I do not know SCHOOL LIFE 55 just what comment to make on this incident, so I will pass on to the next. As was the case at Andover I still felt the need of working my way through. The folks at home were sacrificing, but one year the grasshoppers ate up all the crops, another year a terrific hail storm destroyed everything, and a third year prices were so small there was no income worth mentioning. So at every opportunity I did what I could to earn enough to pay my tuition and my board. One winter the city of Providence opened night schools for working men and boys. My chum and I secured positions as teachers in one of these schools situated in an outlying factory district. We received one dollar each night for two hours’ teaching, but it was so far out that we had to pay ten cents each way on the cars to get to the building. I hesitate to go into details of that night school. There were times when there was a good deal more ‘lickin’ ” than “‘larnin’.”” The rough element among the older factory boys often came in to make trou- ble. They were more interested in getting the teachers into a fight than in getting an education into themselves. I was in training for a tennis tournament (and may I be permitted to say that when it came off I won it), and my farm life had given me experience in dealing with bucking ponies and ornery mules. But I was naturally of a peace- ful disposition. In fact I have the reputation at 56 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY this writing of being a pacifist. But when a burly factory hand swaggered into the school room and began to torment the smaller boys who had come to study and learn, there did not seem to be any way to conduct that school properly except to seize the bully by the coat collar and throw him out. As a matter of fact that was a good part of the curriculum in that school that winter. I would not dare say how many boys I threw downstairs in order to earn my dollar from the Board of Edu- cation. [here was generally a policeman at the foot of the stairs to do the rest, and when we started to get our car home after the session was over we had police protection from the gang that would be waiting for us to beat us up. The whole course was excellent exercise practice for the tennis tournament, and I emerged at the end of the night school session in fine physical condition, entitled to a diploma as a teacher of higher gymnastics. When the summer vacation periods came around during the four year college course I was too far from home to go there, and the expense made it prohibitive, so I generally found work to do every summer. In my Sophomore year I joined a small group of students in the same far-away-from-home- class and we went up to Wolfboro, New Hampshire, and I took a position as a waiter in the Pavilion Hotel on Lake Winnepesaukee. ‘The pay was twelve dollars a month and board and room. The hours SCHOOL LIFE 57 were from six in the morning to nine at night, with three hours off in the afternoon. The guests at my table were mostly from Boston. They were for the most part good natured people who did not com- plain even when I made mistakes in bringing in their orders. One day an elderly man who looked to me like a professor and afterwards turned out to be one, spoke sharply to me about a piece of roast beef which was not done enough to suit his taste. I ventured to give him a line from Homer in Greek in which the poet speaks of the good “red” oxen. He was Greek scholar enough to know the line and instantly became friendly. He was my most in- teresting guest while he stayed at the hotel, and the morning he went away, he left a ten dollar bill at his place. It is the largest fee I have ever received as a hotel waiter, and it has made me feel kindly towards hotel waiters ever since. I abominate the entire feeing system in hotels, but I generally leave something for the waiter when I go away. During the vacation following my Junior year I obtained a position as a hand, “‘slinging clams” at a Rhode Island resort called Rocky Point on Narra- gansett Bay. My work there consisted in getting up at daylight and cleaning up the grounds around the big dining hall, picking up paper bags and sweep- ing up peanut shells and all the litter made by the thousands of excursionists who came down by boat loads from Providence. My main job was bringing 58 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY in hot baked clams from the pile outdoors into the hall and putting the dishes down in front of the people who sat each side of bare tables one hun- dred feet long. It was a rough life, and I cannot say I enjoyed any part of it except the meal hours for the waiters, at which time we certainly fared highly on clams, clam chowder, blue fish, clam frit- ters, roast corn and watermelon. Every Sunday during this summer I went up to Providence and sang in a church quartette, for which I received one dollar a Sunday. I never thought I was much of a singer, although I was on the college glee club, and I treasured this Sunday dollar with a peculiar pride that I have seldom felt for any dollar I have earned since then. It was during my Junior year at Brown that a small group of students in our hall began to write articles for publication. Most of our productions went up to Boston to the Youth’s Companion. I was already one of the editors on the college paper, and was acquiring a taste for writing. It seemed the height of power to get something into a maga- zine and I shall never forget the first yellow slip of a check I received from the Youth’s Companion for a short article of three hundred words. Our group would write several articles apiece and then meet to read them to one another and criticize them without mercy. Then we would revise and send the entire ‘grist to the editor. He was a most unusual person SCHOOL LIFE 59 for an editor, and I do not know how he came to be an editor, but he was exceedingly friendly to our amateur attempts and wrote us letters of advice about writing, and gave us very valuable sugges- tions. The price paid for the average article that the Companion accepted was two dollars, sometimes five. During that period I must have written a bushel of articles and out of them had a dozen accepted. I kept some of the rejected articles and during my Theological Seminary course I rewrote them and submitted them to the Companion again, and some of them were taken and paid for. I am inclined to believe that by that time there might have been another editor. De gustibus in manu- scriptibus non disputandum. One chapter in my university life that meant much to me was my membership in the Delta Upsi- lon Society. It was an open Greek letter society in my time, and strictly literary. We met every Friday night and carried out a full program of par- liamentary law practice, followed by a debate on some very profound subject, then an essay, an ora- tion, some original music by one of the members, an original poem and a closing critique which was made by some member chosen at the beginning of the meeting whose business it was to call attention to every mistake or misquotation of any speaker. The whole thing was most valuable and I am unable in passing to avoid comparison of our program of a 60 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY college society with that of the regular college fraternities to-day, which so far as I have been able to observe have no program of any literary sort, but exist mainly for the social factor, degenerating sometimes into snobbery and jazz and expensive banquetting and a fictitious brotherhood. By this time any one who has read this far will perhaps be inclined to think that I do not believe very much in the present day college Greek letter societies. I am frank to say I do not, because I cannot see what valuable contribution they make, as they are or- ganized, to a student’s real life. They seem to me like little children’s toy games, instead of the great and manly game of life. They furnish college authorities with problems instead of helps to the educational process. My next period of school life was a period of three years immediately following the University, at Andover Theological Seminary. I entered the class of 1886 just at the time of the famous An- dover controversy over what was known as the “Second Probation” question. All there was to it was the opinion expressed by the more liberal group in the Seminary and some of the churches that pos- sibly the heathen who had died without ever hear- ing of Christ might have an opportunity in the next world to repent and be saved. Around this ques- tion fierce debate arose, dividing the pastors all over New England, and exposing certain professors in SCHOOL LIFE 61 the seminary to charges of treason and heresy. During the three years I was in the seminary this controversy went on and some time afterwards. It was forgotten long ago, just as the present contro- versy going on over the doctrines in dispute in the camps of the fundamentalists and modernists will be forgotten in a few years from now. I enjoyed my seminary course more than my university course for several reasons. I was not under the pressure of the grind of recitations and examinations that went on at college, and the fact that I had settled down to my choice of life work was a steadying factor. The principal courses at the seminary were Hebrew, New Testament Greek, church history, and large quantities of homiletics and sermon making. And yet as I recall the courses there was almost nothing taught about Bible schools or how to preach to boys and girls or meet the needs of common men and women. After trying to preach in a parish full of young people and children, I found that my sermon preparation had been taught me almost altogether to make me prepared men- tally to speak or write for grown up audiences, logi- cal treatises, put together with skill, and in language that was chaste and polite. I hope I am not criticiz- ing in any cheap fashion those who were my teachers so much as the general plan and thought of what a theological seminary ought to be. All I know is that I had to learn by hard knocks after I left the 62 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY seminary many of the necessary things that belong to the ministry that the seminary never even hinted at as necessary. I suppose that is true of all educa- tional systems. About all any of them can do is to give the student a shove and then let him do the rest of the steering himself. I was not allowed by the Seminary rules to do any preaching until the Senior year. The first call I had to supply any pulpit came to me, however, when I was in the university, and in writing home about that event I said: “It seems strange to think of writ- ing my first sermon, and I do not know but what I would do better to speak without notes. But in either event I must prepare something as I hear the congregation is a large one.” Inasmuch as my method for sermon delivery has been generally without notes that letter written in 1880 is as interesting to me as to any one. But it seems that at least six years elapsed between that first sermonic attempt until I was called to preach at a number of small churches that had no regular supplies, during my Senior year at Andover. The modest fees that went with these supplies that year, together with some checks I received from my old friend, the Youth’s Companion, helped me through the three years’ Seminary course, my an- nual expenses being less than $400 all told. So that when I graduated with a degree of B.D. I had no debts nor anything else in the way of future service SCHOOL LIFE 63 in any church. On account of the general excite- ment over the theological controversies that raged around Andover Seminary, the graduates, especially those of our class, were regarded with more or less suspicion as tainted with dangerous heresy. No one seemed to want me as a preacher or pastor, and it was not until I had left Andover hill and gone home to the folks who had in the interval between my entrance into the Seminary and my graduation moved to Salem, that I received a call to the pulpit of the Congregational church in Waterbury, Ver- mont. I was not wanted there, however, until Octo- ber, and while I was waiting to make my decision on the call, a letter came to me from Dr. Lyman Abbott, who was then editor of The Outlook, ofter- ing me a place on The Outlook to make my own department as a writer. I think some one of the teachers in the Seminary must have written him. The invitation was an enticing one. I hesitated over it. I had trained myself to be a minister. I had made all my studies to adapt them to that end. But I also had a very strong leaning towards jour- nalism. I had a real struggle to make my final choice, but I wrote at last to Dr. Abbott declining his offer and in the same mail I sent to Waterbury my acceptance of the call to the little country town church. I have never regretted that choice, but I have often wondered at the probable wonderful time I might have had in the companionship and 64 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY friendship of that great editor and writer. I won- der if there are very often two equally desirable choices open to the sons of men, either one of which may cause him to have lifelong desires, not regrets, but whispering wishes. | Following a period of nine years’ continuous school life, I found myself with father’s old wander- lust on me. I did not have a cent left after the nine years’ expenses, but a friend in Salem learned in some way of the longing I had expressed in the family circle for a trip to England. It seems to me now like a story out of a fairy book, but this friend, who was a thrifty New Englander, offered to loan me a small amount without interest, asking only my note, to be payed back when I was receiving a salary from my prospective church in Waterbury. I bor- rowed $200 from him, and with one small bag carrying a few necessary articles I sailed on the Cunard steamer, the Cephalonia, from Boston for Liverpool, in the Intermediate cabin, paying the Cunard Company $35 for my board and passage. That left me about $160 when I landed at King Georges’ wharf, Liverpool, in the last of June, 1886. I spent a little over $100 in London, and stayed there through July and August. And one day when I felt in my pocket and counted out just enough to get back to the United States again, I took my last walk through Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s and then went down to the American SCHOOL LIFE 65 Steamship Company’s office and paid $50 for a first class cabin return ticket to New York. When I landed in New York I had just fifteen cents in American money, an English farthing and a few souvenirs, assets over all liabilities, and I was $5.30 worth of railroad fare distant from Salem, Mass., where the folks still lived. I pawned my watch to raise the necessary railroad fare, and have never redeemed it. If I remember the facts, father paid my fare to Waterbury, Vermont, and I began my ministry there in October of the year 1886 at the age of 29, with an empty pocket book, a sound body, an ambitious spirit, and a genuine desire in my heart to love the church and honor my first ministry. But the wildest stretch of my imagination gave me no hint of the fact that in Waterbury, a little quiet hill town, I was to meet the young woman who was to be my wife. I have sometimes wondered what she thought of me the first time she saw me. It ought to make good reading if she ever gets it into print. CHAPTER THREE MY FIRST MINISTRY, WATERBURY, VERMONT BEGINNING OF MINISTRY Waterbury, Vermont, lies in among the Green Mountains, a most beautiful spot, and when I began my ministry there it had in the township about seven hundred people. There were two churches in the town, a Methodist and a Congregational. There was a Main Street, and another crossing it. The church was known locally as the “Congo” church. I have never heard that abbreviation anywhere else. It was organized in the old New England fashion with a church membership group and a Parish group. In the Parish were men and women who did not belong to the church, but they had a vote in calling or dismissing the minister. Indeed, no min- ister could be called as pastor without a joint action ~ by both the church and the Parish. I was so called by both bodies. The pews in the church were owned in fee simple by the members of the church and Parish, and in a man’s will he often included “One pew in the Congregational church,” which went to his heirs and assigns. 66 MY FIRST MINISTRY 67 I was not married and I boarded at the one hotel on the main street, paying four dollars a week for my room and meals. My salary was nine hun- dred dollars, raised by subscription. As soon as I had saved the amount out of that salary I returned to the Salem friend the $200 that he had loaned me for my trip to England. I think that was some- time about the middle of the first winter. My ambition as I began my ministry in this little town was to be a preacher. I was not in love with any one at this time, and the shyness that had been a feature of my boyhood had pursued me up to my twenty-ninth year, and I think the young women in the parish regarded me with some disapproval because I would not invite them sometimes to take a ride in the little old buggy bequeathed to me by the former minister who had also added to it a pony known and loved all over the township, and called ‘Pony Bly.”” The old minister always had the buggy full of girls and boys as he drove around on his parish calls. ‘The public did not see why the habit was discontinued when the young minister came. But speaking this chapter of my history frankly, I was in love and determined to be, only with my business as a preacher. And for two years I at- tended strictly to that business. I soon found that my people possessed the sturdy traits of the best New England heritage. Very many of the mem- bers lived outside the town. That meant long 68 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY drives to get to church. It also meant long drives for me to make my visits to them. But after all the parish work of the day was over I shut myself up in the little corner room of the hotel and wrote my sermons. For two years I wrote out at night every word of both sermons for morning and evening services, although later I abandoned that method for the notes and memory. My landlady, a motherly and thoughtful body, gave me free range of the hotel pantry at all hours. I would write on my sermon until midnight or one o'clock. Then I would begin to get hungry. The hotel was asleep. The town was dark. The quiet of the mountains and hills shut down about that corner of Main Street in the early hours with a stillness that I found very helpful to composition. But I would be so worked up over the sermon mak- ing that I found from experience I needed a little food before I could go to sleep. I would go down the broad hall of the old hotel, creep down the wide stairs, through the dining room and the kitchen and into the pantry where the shelves were filled with the most palatable apple pies, all made by the landlady herself from the choicest baldwins, and help myself to a piece of pie some- what bigger than the amount served on a Pullman diner, a slice of sage cheese and a pitcher of cold milk, and take them up to my room and have a feast. I then retired and slept healthily until seven MY FIRST MINISTRY 69 o’clock. So far as I have been able to discover I have never suffered in any way from this habit of apple pie and cheese eaten at night, but I hope it is understood that I am not trying to lay down any rules for other people’s dietary. I had not been in Waterbury a month before I found that the regular and narrow round of amuse- ments for the young people revolved for the most part around dancing and card playing. ‘There was no reading room or library and little community life. ‘The two churches were rivals in a field where one church was enough for all the people. I am telling this story of my life with an honest attempt to tell things just as they were, and so I am going to confess that I entered into this church rivalry with all my might, which meant trying to get all the town to come and hear me preach, and making all the friends I could for the purpose of making the “Congo” church popular. Our organist married and moved to Montpelier, and I promptly secured the services of the Methodist organist by offering to pay her fifty cents a Sunday more than she was getting at the Methodist Church. This extra amount I paid out of my own salary. At the time I saw no impropriety in doing a thing like this, be- cause the Methodist minister employed the same tactics toward me. We were both political sec- tarians, each one eager to build up his own church at the expense of the other, and yet at the heart of my 70 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY ministry during those two years, paradoxical as it may seem, I believe I had at the same time a sincere desire to preach Christ and honor his teaching. In the matter of denominational rivalry I simply fol- lowed the prevailing custom. As I look back at it, of course I revolt at the whole affair, but it illus- trated the absurdity and even wickedness of denom- inational life at its worst. Incidentally the first Reading Club which I or- ganized to get the young people interested in some- thing besides dancing and cards provoked the bitter criticism of the Methodist pastor, because the Club finally became so popular that all the young people including the Methodist group came into it, so that he charged me with wholesale proselyting of his flock. I may say that I never felt even then that I was guilty of doing anything unchristian in the for- mation of that club. I will confess my sin in taking away his organist but when it came to interesting the young people of the town, the field was as open to the other minister as to myself. He had not entered it, and I considered the matter wholly from the standpoint of general welfare for all the young folks regardless of their church connection. Out of this Reading Club grew a town Library. which I am pleased to say is flourishing today. It is one of the practical results of many experiments I made, some of which were experiments only, as I stumbled along sometimes getting up a little, and MY FIRST MINISTRY 71 sometimes falling down in very humiliating fash- ion, because I was not wise enough to wait for re- sults. I could not prevail on the people to vote for free pews or the doing away with the old Par- ish system which allowed people not members of the church an equal vote in church affairs with those who had actually joined and were actually mem- bers. In other matters I learned after the first year to exercise patience and secure by persuasion what I could not effect by throwing a bomb Sunday morning from the pulpit into the pews. Among the trying experiences of that first winter in Waterbury were the extraordinary numbers of funerals I was called on to attend. I had over twenty-five between November and April. And most of them were cases of death of strong stocky young farmer boys from typhoid fever. ‘They did not know, and the doctors did not know that the real cause of this terrible mortality was in almost every instance farm wells near cesspools or the contamina- tion of barn yards and unsanitary conditions which existed generally on nearly every Vermont farm. I was accustomed that winter to hear ministers who | officiated at funerals like mine say in their sermons and their prayers that the dear departed had been visited by a divine providence. It took me two years to arrive at the facts and take on courage enough to tell the farmers living in those solitary hill farms that it was not divine providence that was 72 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY making their boys sicken and die, but a very earthly pig pen too near the well. The first time I ven- tured to say that, I was nearly driven off the prem- ises, but the young doctor in town finally came to my side and between us we made some impression. But the second winter I had a score of deaths to attend that made my soul revolt at the slow and indifferent progress towards a disagreeable truth. But none of us knew then that the time would come when a typhoid patient would be almost as rare for the average doctor as a case of bubonic plague or cholera. Waterbury did not boast any hearse but had to hire one from Waitesfield or Montpelier. When we could not get a hearse from either place the coffin was put into a long box just enough larger in size than the casket to allow the latter to slide into the former. On one occasion on a very steep hill as I drove in my accustomed place in the funeral pro- cession directly behind the vehicle that conveyed the casket, I was horrified to see the rear door of this long box break from its hinges and the casket inside slipped out and fell on the ground in front of Pony Bly. I did not make any remarks out loud at the time, but afterwards I did, and the town bought a hearse instead of hiring one or using a makeshift. During these funeral experiences I soon found that the regular service expected by the family should consist of a long and exhaustive sermon in MY FIRST MINISTRY 73 the church and a long eulogy also at the grave, even if the weather marked fifteen below zero and we had driven at a slow walk over the wind-swept hills for nine miles to the cemetery. The first time I ventured to keep my hat on at the grave I met the rebuke of my senior deacon and the strong disap- proval of the family, although the family had not been to church for years, did not belong to mine or any other and drove back to their farm without a word of thanks or an expression of gratitude al- though I had been out to their place, a distance of several miles, to see the deceased during his illness many times, spending days of travel going and com- ing, and on the last drive ruining a good suit of clothes in a terrible storm of rain when my buggy wheel came off and I had to soak around in the clay mud for hours trying to mend it. It is, of course, inexcusable for a minister to tell of things like these, and he does not do it as a rule, but perhaps once in a lifetime he may be allowed to emphasize the uncomfortable fact of the existence of a certain type of humans who exist in nearly every parish. During my two years in Waterbury I did not have many such experiences, but I had enough of them to make me wonder at the humanity that will take service from the church and give nothing back. But at any rate I was not too young | in the ministry to be able to think that after all the dependence of unchurched families on the church in 74 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY times of trouble was a splendid compliment to the reputation of the church for helpfulness regardless of any thought of reward. I began to feel the need of a closer acquaintance with my people the second winter and asked them one Sunday morning from the pulpit if they would be willing to board me around a week at a time. I outlined my plan as follows: I was boarding and rooming at the hotel, and could regulate my movements with perfect independ- ence. I suggested that beginning with a Sunday I would go home with the family that would make me their guest for a week and take the midday meal with them directly after the morning service and visit with them at the table. I would then go back to the hotel and get ready for the evening meeting. After the evening meeting I would go home with the family and have another visit with all of them as long as they wished. Then beginning with Monday I would eat my breakfast at the hotel and go to the home and take dinner and supper and spend as much of the evening with the family as was desired or possible. The same program to be carried out for all the other days of the week, ending with Satur- day night. Beginning with the following Sunday I would go home with another family in the same way. I did not realize then and I have hardly come to know yet just what all that meant to busy house- wives, but I was naturally pleased at the time to find MY FIRST MINISTRY 75 that my proposal to invite myself to free meals for a week met with such a welcome response that before the year was over I had carried out that program in forty families, and I believe the plan enabled me to become better acquainted with those families than I could have known them by any amount of casual “parish calls.” I hesitate to say how many chicken dinners I helped consume. Also I do not know to this day exactly what some of the church families really thought of the plan. All I know is that I enjoyed playing with the children in the family circle in the evenings, and had a glimpse of the home circle that I wonder at today. In many of them I helped to introduce family worship, and learned much valuable information from some of the best informed Vermont farmers who were included in my parish who took pride in showing me their butter-making and maple sugar devices. At least I like to think my ‘“‘boarding around” did not harm any one unless at times I felt overfed. During those weeks Mother Barrett, my landlady at the Main Street hotel, saved her apple pies and cheese, and if I remember correctly, she deducted my meals out from my weekly bill. The president of the Ladies’ Aid Society lived on the north side of Main Street. During the week that I “boarded around” with her she spoke nearly every day of the great annoyance she suffered from the clouds of south wind dust that sifted into her 76 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY house from the Main Street which was not paved, and was thick with dust in a dry season. She was an immaculate housekeeper, and a speck of dust on her furniture was not only a sign of slovenly housekeeping but it was indexed in her mind almost as a sin. When I finished my week at her house, I began to think out a plan to sprinkle Main Street. Across the track of the Central Vermont Railroad and a quarter of a mile from the hotel, up on the high hillside was a large spring that I had discovered in my walks and climbs about the town, and it was on a tract of land that belonged to one of my church members. I first secured his consent to make whatever use of the spring that I wished as well as the use of an old barn of his that was down near the street. I bought several hundred feet of pipe and with the help of one of the older boys who was a member of the Reading Club we ran the pipe from the spring to the barn and into an old wooden tank in the hay loft. The tank was what was left of an old cider press outfit and I had it mended to hold a large amount of water. To my great delight I found that the pressure from the elevation of the spring would fill this tank full in a short time. My next task was to find anything like a water wagon. I finally secured another old cider tub of a large dimension and had it mounted on a lumber wagon, and then for a driver I hired an old man MY FIRST MINISTRY "7 who was a village character, who had invested in a span of horses that I believe were even older than the driver. I forget what I paid him, but it did not take quite all my salary. We found the hard- ware and tinsmith man in town could make a rough but workable tin sprinkler that was fastened to the bottom of the cider tub after considerable trouble in adjusting it so that when the wagon turned around it would not collide with the trees that lined the whole length of Main Street. That was a proud but anxious day when the driver first filled the wagon tank from the barn tank and started his deliberate career up Main Street. ‘The town had been having some inkling of what was going on, but the actual advent of the sprinkler into the street brought every able-bodied person and some of the shut-ins to the door or window of every house. That old scarecrow on the wagon had a bigger audience than either the Methodist minister or myself had ever boasted. I stood on the upper porch of the hotel just outside my own window and I am willing to confess that the sight of that sprin- kler making its triumphal progress past the residence of the President of the Ladies’ Aid gave me greater satisfaction than most of the honorary degrees I have since received. The sprinkler made its regular trips up and down Main Street all summer, and people never seemed to get over the novelty of it. It made almost the same impression every time it “8 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY appeared as a circus parade in its one solitary annual appearance in a small country town. I had many troubles over the spring, which repeatedly went wrong in choking up the outlet pipe. I must have spent weeks all told in doing things to keep the sprinkler going. But the dust was laid, and I could get almost anything I wanted from the Ladies’ Aid Society during the remainder of my ministry in Waterbury. It was during this second summer that I began to discover that a large number of the old people in my parish were very deaf, and while many of them went to church from long habit they could not hear the sermon or enjoy the singing or any of the service. It seemed to me a pity that every Sunday twenty- five or thirty men and women in my congregation never heard a word of what I was saying, and could not take part in the responsive readings or the hymn singing. So I made arrangements with a printer in Montpelier to print one sermon every month. This printed sermon was ready to be distributed on a Sunday morning just before the service began. When the sermon was ready for delivery from the pulpit every person in the congregation had the printed form in his hand to follow. I found after trying this plan that it added to the pleasure of those who were unable to hear. The expense of the printing was met by a voluntary silver offering at MY FIRST MINISTRY 79 the door as people went out. I was gratified also by the attention paid to the sermon when it was printed, by all the people, even those who were not deaf. But one of my friends who was a young law- yer studying with Governor William Dillingham, who afterwards became the famous Senator from Vermont, said, “It’s a great scheme of yours to keep the whole congregation from falling asleep by get- ting them to read the sermon while you are deliver- ing it. I suppose they follow you to see if you skip any of it or mispronounce any words.” This story of my ministry in Waterbury and after- wards in Kansas is not written to advocate any sermonic methods or plans or emphasize any par- ticular programs of church work. I am giving as near as I can the story of my own first attempts in the ministry which were made on the assumption that the work of a minister is in a very remarkable degree an undefined profession. A doctor has a pretty well-defined program. A lawyer knows to a large degree just what his work in life is going to be. A newspaper man has a well-defined outline. A banker moves in a well-described orbit. But a minister is dealing with life on every side. His day’s program is not hard and fast. His problems are not those of the average man. ‘The entire com- pass of human experience and human sin and human need and human regeneration is the stretch of the minister’s ever changing task. I have never believed 80 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY that writing sermons and making calls and marrying people and burying them and delivering Commence- ment addresses spelled the main chapters in a min- ister’s life. There is something more. Even the great calling of preaching and teaching religious truth does not define the minister’s calling. There is more than that to it. Life on all sides, life abun- dantly is the minister’s business. Somehow it grew on me during those short two years there in the Green Mountains among those farm people and townspeople, as I met them on Main Street and in their homes and on Sundays that what I could do for them in between the Sundays, and what they had to teach me in between the preaching and teaching periods meant far more to them and to me than any professional service they paid me for or that I tried to earn. I have not made what I mean very clear, have I? But as we go on perhaps it will come out somewhere what I mean by the ministry as com- pared with other callings. — | I had always had a hope that sometime I might have a church of my own that had not had any pre- vious minister or history, something that I could shape and grow up with. So it happened that when at the close of my second year at Waterbury I re- ceived a call to become pastor of the Central Con- gregational Church in Topeka, Kansas, a church newly formed from the First Church, an organiza- tion of about sixty people, I felt as if my dream TOPEKA. 1889. BEGINNING OF MINISTRY IN CENTRAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. CRABB. I Central Congres ahenal Chavch Teyeha, Poantad eet are the coe Chanohy tetas eh 8 Bayar, tise, WeLe: LeKGS eR pusher atyelee fp ata ba be rng Hus hate Bs oh rtak Suhh on fos Ln a. the, Charts pre, By pe 7H Wess eee ree he &i tants ant = criny tet wet frm bonsarjato wo, fi henche, J opndia, Mico fol * Coumecil rere bre H s58K Tra four foster, Aha %, ERB. fra Bosice Ly $2 ¥ dye oak ee} t ‘the deus Pans. patting « nfonneares 14y W50. Fig eed rete. veasonai™ prt “te seebe oeda pin stibe ee von oe WHERE CENTRAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, TOPEKA, KANSAS, BEGAN 1889. Bedarss gatamphes3s goblet, Pics iar 1%, 50 te Aamve O46 fatter ore aytans “Gt wow. Core AS eek SeeBES: Set, Ee Parson, Bieord ¥YOORRs: Hare, BIS. Fe PERLE Byes » preana. Cxas, F 5 SPR Re Be eeeddos REIS Ge BASED: : - aaliaee, costal * CENTRAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, SHELDON COMMUNITY HOUSE TOPEKA, KANSAS. 1925. ¢ BP rca ae “a ay. je a te ae we < is Wh) Qi THEA gi i g 7 as i Tt c= 6h ‘ aie P ~ were © Sly ars a 7 A : re ' a } =" a ‘ " 3 } ‘ - - ‘ A — J8 ' a) ws i ~ : Cale Ae ae Shs es ee. here = . ite. # i ; x ie ‘ ’ ps 2 ~~ i. ar sap ¢ ¢ R =). VS ides? a ' a * 7 ‘i = a « oy aa ’ ; - a 2s (owe 4S se 7s @ ea ee ee oa Le | 14 - ; : ; Ce Oe vt ; J “i aye Se teh > SA = +44 f 7 P , j 145 rw. - Ww S 7 1 j ™) A se xe y ' { } f a) i ¢ 74 « Fi ¥ pi? Z' : ~ : ¢ \ Pare | j Bt e 1 7 =e) a ‘ .” 15 7 FT gl Pt 3 Pe = |e ‘ = - é te ~q * ‘ ° x , ‘ , ( - is ® _ - . - = 4 “ rt £5 Pet , al j . 5 ae ce a , > i Fs 4 «i = ~ Z a ¥ - uy ce a \ : hs is } ' ‘ is i oe ~~ Me ~ 4 ‘ ~ < 4 es 79 ' * } ‘ 4 x ' > ca ‘ - ’ ol © so i. : ~ ¢ _" ‘ : r ° - ~ » - ne 6 , ay = 7. ' 7 j aa 2 is i & e é 8 ~@ ; oF ee i & eves) ; a. 1 4 . e Tle owt ae iT Y Oe | = MY FIRST MINISTRY 81 was coming true, and instantly accepted the call, and began my ministry in Kansas in January of the year 1889. My first service with my new Parish began in a little room in the upper story of a meat market building. There was no pulpit and my first sermon I laid on the top of the little reed organ while the congregation sat around on chairs and benches. There was a stone foundation laid for a permanent church building a block away from the meat market but the building was not ready for use until June of that year. Meanwhile we enjoyed the ‘upper room” in which conversions took place and over forty men, women and children joined the church at the first communion. It is astonishingly true that the Spirit of God pays very little attention to the particular places in which men find Him. It would be interesting to know how many souls have been born again out of doors instead of in temples made with men’s hands. At any rate a little room over a meat market is not a poor place in which to find God and love him, especially when the souls who meet there are with one accord and are seeking after the Divine if happily they may find Him. The following winter was an unusually severe one and owing to industrial conditions prevailing all over the country thousands of men were out of work, and could not find anything to do. The thing lay on me like a monstrous burden that seemed more than I 82 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY could bear. I believe that at that time in my ex- perience I felt, as I have often wished I could feel again with the same intensity, the horrible blunder and stupidity of our whole industrial system that does not work according to any well-established plan of a Brotherhood of men, but is driven by forces that revolve around some pagan rule of life called “supply and demand” or a “‘market”’ or a “condi- tion,’ rather than around a combined and intelli- gent effort of human beings who have a mutual in- terest in one another instead of a cunningly devised scheme to get something out of one another. ‘I felt the isolation of the preacher and the minis- ter from the great world of labor. What did I know of it except the little experience I had had on a farm asa boy? It seemed to me that the church as an organization was so remote from the working masses that it could never hope to bring them in- side its fold. It was another world from the re- ligious and denominational world into which my people and I had been born and raised, and I re- sented it as an artificial barrier to any thought of a _ human brotherhood. Thinking it all over one snowy afternoon as I sat in my little room at Mother’s (I was still un- married and not giving a thought to anything except my preaching and parish work), I wondered what I could do to ease my own mental unrest. I finally hunted up the oldest suit of clothes I could find in MY FIRST MINISTRY 83 the closet and after putting them on I told my mother that I was going out for the rest of the afternoon; I went out past the church and walked on down to the town’s business street and after reaching the lower end of the avenue near the river where I seldom went and where I would not be known I entered the first place of business that seemed to me to be favorable and asked the man behind a counter if he knew where I could find a job. He did not even look up from a paper he was reading. I spoke to him again and he simply stared at me, but did not answer my question. I think it was a retail feed store I had gone into. I stood my ground and finally the man said, with a snort, “Job! You tell me where I can get one, will you? There isn’t business to keep a hen busy.” As I started to go out he said, “If you find a job, let me know, will you?” I went out and into the next door, and asked the same question, and got about the same answer. I continued on going into every place of business on that side of the street, until I came to the river and crossed it and continued my search for a job over in what is known as North Topeka, where I had seldom gone in the short time I had been with my church and where the chance of my being known was very small. The places I went into represented every form of business from coal yards to flouring mills and ele- 84 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY vators and shoe shops and restaurants and hotels and grocery stores and hardware and dry goods. I also tried several houses to ask if there was any work I might do around the house or barn. In all I must have applied at over forty different places asking for work, and there was no work to be had, of any sort. As night came on I had an uncanny feeling that the thing I was trying was somehow real, and I wondered what I would do if I could not find any work and where I would spend the night. Back in my mind I knew that although my walk had taken me about four miles from Mother’s I could get back there in time for a good warm supper and a comfortable bed and the luxury of a home. But as I turned back to cross the river again I still had a queer feeling that the world was a very cold and dreary place where a man who wanted to work and had the ability to do good work could not find any one who wanted his work. Late that night, after relating my experience to the folks, who, I should have said before this, had followed me to Kansas from the old Salem home, I went up to my little room and reflected on my day’s search for a job, and tried to put myself in the other man’s place, and then multiply him by several hundred thousand as they actually were that winter. I did not sleep soundly, but in the morning I started out again on MY FIRST MINISTRY 85 the same quest, determined to spend the entire week hunting for work until I found it. For three days more I walked nearly all over the town asking for a job and failing to find any. At the end of the fourth day I had grown bolder in my attempts and ventured into the heart of the business district on the avenue, but my clothes were rusty and an old overcoat and a shapeless hat gave me more disguise than even I had supposed would be real. JI happened to meet only occasionally a parishioner and was not recognized so far as I know by any one. It occurred to me occasionally that per- haps the very looks of a man who presented more or less the appearance of a tramp was the reason for the short and hopeless answers I received, but in more than one place of business I was aware of fairly well-dressed men turning away from counters and coming out of offices rebuffed in their attempts to secure a job. It is not easy at this time to understand the con- ditions that prevailed during that bleak winter of 1890. I doubt if any similar condition in the industrial world has been true since then. It was Friday afternoon when I found myself down on the Santa Fé tracks in the railroad yards. I had spent the week up to that time in a fruitless search for work. I think it is safe to say that there was hardly a business of any sort wholesale or retail in the whole town that I had not been into. Doc- 86 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY tors’ offices, the two newspapers, the street car barns, drug stores, hotels, boarding houses, news stands, restaurants, everything except the theaters and the tobacco stores I had tried, and as the week was drawing to a close I began to have a hunger for work that I never used to feel out on the farm in Dakota. Every time I saw men at work anywhere at anything I envied them. ‘They have a job,” I kept saying: ‘‘Why can’t I get one?” The getting and holding of a job had come to seem to my think- ing the very apex of success in life. It had been snowing all the week and a gang of men was at work on the Santa Fe tracks in the yards shoveling the snow off the ties and clearing the switches. They looked to me like specially favored human beings, and I stopped near them and asked them what they were getting for their job of shovel- ing. They said the road paid them one seventy-five a day. It seemed to me a fabulous sum. I won- dered what I would do if I had that amount com- ing to me at the end of the day, and finally I asked one of the shovelers if they would object if I got a shovel and joined them. I said I wanted to get warm doing something. There was no objection that I heard, and I went over to a coal yard near by and borrowed a second hand shovel and joined the Santa Fé gang and shoveled snow the rest of the afternoon. I en- joyed the work as much as I have ever enjoyed any MY FIRST MINISTRY 87 work in my life. It was work, and work was what I was hunting. Just to be in the company of human beings who were working and who had a job added to my self-respect which I had been losing for four days and a half because no one in the wide world needed me. It was getting dark when the men quit. I took my shovel back to the coal man and walked the two miles home through the storm, quite elated. I had at last found a job. To be sure the matter of pay was not taken into account, and in explaining my day’s experience I think I did not make it very plain to my mother and father and sisters just why I felt so well satisfied with the day’s outcome, but I felt quite a glow at the heart that I had at least been for four hours a part of the world’s labor. And I have ever since that Friday afternoon had a sort of feeling that the Santa Fé Railroad owes me eighty-seven and one-half cents for a half day’s work shoveling snow down in the yards, even if I was not on its pay roll. I worked harder that after- noon than any other member of the gang and shoveled more snow, and talked less and did not soldier on the job by stopping to light my pipe every time it went out. I have never put in any claim for this eighty-seven and a half cents, but morally the railroad owes it to me, because I really did work that much money’s worth. There was only one more day in the week in 88 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY which to hunt for work and I went down Saturday morning early and applied to the man who had loaned me the shovel for a job. Something in his appearance when I took the shovel back made me think perhaps he might give me something to do. To my great delight he set me to work shoveling coal out of a carload into his coal yard bins. | reveled in that job. I worked so hard that I had the car empty before noon. I hoped there might be something more, but it was all. I ate a sandwich and drank a cup of coffee in a little box of a lunch place near the tracks paying for them out of the fifty cents the man paid me for the job, and carried home the balance of change, forty cents, which I put into the contribution box Sunday morning. In the evening I told my congregation about the week’s experience. They seemed really interested, so much so that I asked them if I might be allowed to carry out a plan I had been brooding over all the past week while hunting work. I outlined the plan to the congregation and found there was no outspoken opposition and beginning with the very next day I set to work to carry it out. I divided the whole town into eight groups of hu- mans as follows: Doctors, Lawyers, Business Men, Railroad Men, Street Car Men, College Students, Newspaper Men, and Negroes. There were several thousand of these latter, many of them living in a residence section of the city, just across the street MY FIRST MINISTRY 89 from our church in what was known as Tennessee- town. My plan consisted in an attempt to live as nearly as I could for an entire week with each one of these groups as they would let me. In carrying out the program I went first to the President of the Medical Association in town and asked to be allowed to meet with the doctors at their weekly meeting, to visit the hospitals and be allowed to see operations, to ride out with the doctors on their regular visits to patients, to ask them all the questions about their work that I could think of and in short to learn all I could about a doctor’s life as far as possible. For my part I promised to do anything the doctors asked me to do except take their medicine. And I had a very busy and valuable week. The next week I moved over into the lawyers’ camp with the same general purpose. I attended court trials, read law all the week with a prominent judge in his office, went to a meeting of the Bar Association, heard cases between lawyers and clients, and pored over law journals every evening. With the Business Men’s group I visited all the principal stores, and interviewed the managers, in- vited special groups of them to lunch where we talked over business methods and problems, and in several instances was permitted to address groups of employees who came together by invitation from the employers. I do not think I got very far with 90 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY anything that week. The subject was too large to absorb intelligently. My week with the Railroad Men was in some ways the most exciting and interesting of all. ‘wo nights I had permission from the Superintendent of the Division to ride on the switching engine at the yards. For the entire week I had a pass from the Superintendent which permitted me to ride on any train, passenger or freight, and on any engine on any train on the division coming into or going out of Topeka. This included all trains running as far as Kansas City to the east and Emporia to the west. I spent two exciting nights on a fast freight, riding in the caboose part of the time, in the engine part of the time and on top of the cars part of the time. Twice in jumping from one car to another when the train was in motion I nearly fell between the cars. It was before the days of the movies, but I still be- lieve that if the camera could have caught some of the frantic moves I made to clear the yawning gaps between the cars of that freight train rolling down the road to Bill White’s town, it would beat any- thing yet taken for the purpose of creating a thrill. In between these train rides I visited the big machine shops that are located at Topeka, and talked with all Railroad Men I met, asking them all sorts of questions about their work. Topeka at this time had the longest electric street car line in the Middle West. The Superintendent MY FIRST MINISTRY 91 gave me leave to ride on all the cars at any hour of the day or night. I followed the same plan as in the railroad week riding with the men, talking to them whenever their duties would permit, and study- ing all the problems they mentioned, including their religious faiths, their housing conditions, wages and general home life as much of it as the men were willing to share with me. During the college week I attended the college recitations, took a course with the class in sociology, played indoor gymnasium games with the baseball team, and lived with the students and teachers in every way possible. My aim was to find out as much as I could of the religious life of the college and the general plan and purpose of the courses in edu- cation to get the teachers’ and students’ definition of it. The Topeka Daily Capital gave me a route as a reporter covering a wide range of territory and subjects. In between the reports I wrote of political and society events I spent all the time I could in the press room learning all I could about the recep- tion of A.P. news and its uses, as well as the me- chanical work of a daily. I had several conferences with the reporters and editors, and have no doubt I wore them out with questions and amused them with suggestions out of my ignorance. 3 Tennesseetown, where about 1,000 Negroes lived in small cabins, proved to be so interesting a study 92 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY that I extended my time and spent two weeks among the people there. After living over there and study- ing the needs of the people who had come up in an exodus from Tennessee to Kansas, it looked like a promising field for missionary and welfare work for my young people, and after making a careful survey of the district to find out the conditions that existed, the young people went over, and continued to work for several years in what was really foreign mission- ary ground. I want to stop right here for a few minutes to pay tribute to the young life in my Topeka parish. The story of my ministry would not be in any sense a good picture if the story of the young people who were a part of it all were not told. I owe more to them than I can every repay except with affec- tionate regard and esteem. For many years during the thirty-one years of a pastorate that was free from any shadow of dissension or division my young people worked at tasks that might and perhaps would have discouraged and appalled any group of grown up folks. They walked and ran into places where angels were hard to find. ‘Their very igno- rance of the problems involved over in ‘Tennessee- town made them immune to fear or defeat. In look- ing back over it Iam amazed at the perfect abandon with which they invaded that black territory and re- claimed it. The entire prospect was without hope of reward or success. But when once the picture MY FIRST MINISTRY 93 of what might be done was clear to them they threw themselves into the adventure as eagerly and cour- ageously as any missionary force in any foreign land. The first thing they did was to hire a dance hall where the Negroes had been in the habit of spend- ing their social evening hours, and turned it into a reading room and library. It was an unfinished building and the young folks went over at night and lathed it and mended it and then raised the money for the plastering and painting. For several years this reading room and library served the interests of the community, the young folks taking their turns at _ the post of librarian evenings, many of them who were college students spending many nights in this task. Gradually other things grew out of the attempt to create a community spirit among the people in Ten- nesseetown. A Kindergarten was organized and it continued for over twenty years until it was taken over by the city school board. ‘Ten years after it was started it sent an exhibit of its work to the Jamestown Exposition and later to the St. Louis Exposition and in both cases carried off the silver medal for the best exhibit over every other kinder- garten display made by any other schools white or colored. The children who composed the first gathering of these Negroes into the first Kinder- garten for Negroes west of the Mississippi are now 94 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY grown and have children of their own, and many of them are living in comfortable modern houses, they drive good automobiles for which they have paid the price, they live on land that once was cov- ered with shacks, they have responsible positions as lawyers and doctors and public officials and are among the substantial citizens of the state. For the carrying on of all this work the young people helped to raise the money, and they took an active part in personal work, which after all lay at the heart of the most valuable contribution they made to the real redemption of ‘Tennesseetown. There was much vacant land about the cabins and in the neighborhood and it was not being used for gardens or flowers. We organized a Commun- ity Garden society and offered prizes for the best garden on a man’s lot, and more than twenty-five prizes were given for the best-looking home, inside and out, adding prizes for the best display of cook- ing and sewing and flower exhibit. This led to an annual meeting in the hall where the kindergarten was held, and the prizes, in the form of garden uten- sils, household furnishings and books were distrib- - uted to a crowd that literally darkened the doors and windows and roosted all over every vantage point where the view of the proceedings could be seen. Later the young folks added a creche for working mothers, and basket weaving and sewing classes MY FIRST MINISTRY 95 and other manual labor for which the workers re- ceived market prices. But the two things that con- tinued longest for permanent influence were the kindergarten and the library, supplemented by Sun- day meetings where the young people of my En- deavor Society would pick up their chairs and go over Sunday nights in a body and hold a model Christian Society religious service, the Negro popu- lation, as many as could get into the hall, sitting in reverent attention and joining with their untrained but God-given voices in the Gospel hymns sung by all. I have often thought that in the singing of those songs where the black and white unison rose together in the heart of that American Africa, my young people, without quite knowing how, came to feel the oneness of the human family more deeply than in all the work they did for the welfare of those brothers and sisters of ours of another color but of the same blood in the great Creator’s design of the human family. It was during the fall of the next year that I began to be troubled over the ‘problem’ of the Sunday evening service. The working of it out led to the writing of ‘In His Steps” and other stories. It all seems as strange to me as to any one else, and in the telling of it, most of it never before related or published, I am hoping that those who read this story of my life will forgive what might seem at times like a personal boastfulness or unfor- 96 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY givable egotism. In order to avoid anything like that, I am going to tell the story of ‘In His Steps” as if it had no connection with the author at all, standing outside the narrative and looking in with the readers at a chapter in life which came out of a chapter of fiction in which it seems as if the Divine Power took a very weak bit of human composition and molded it into his own gracious purpose. CHAPTER FOUR THE STORY OF “IN HIS STEPS” The story, “In His Steps, or What Would Jesus Do?” was first written by the author in the summer and fall of the year 1896 in Topeka, Kansas. Most of it was written out of doors on the author’s porch, where the intense summer Kansas heat registered over one hundred degrees nearly every day for sev- eral weeks. While it was being written it was also being read at the Sunday evening services, chapter by chapter, in the Central Congregational Church. The congre- gation was composed for the most part of young people, members of the Christian Endeavor Society, and college students at Washburn College. Late in the fall of that year while the reading was going on, the Chicago Advance, a small church paper, asked for the story to be printed as a serial, and finally purchased the serial rights for $75. When the reading was finished, friends asked for a book publication and the author took the manu- script to Chicago and offered it to three different publishers all of whom rejected it, giving as the reason the strong religious character of the story 97 98 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY which they said would make it a failure on the book market. The manuscript therefore went back to the dd- vance publishers who were asked to put out a ten cent paper covered volume for the first edition. The Advance people had never printed a book of any sort and were not in the book publishing busi- ness, but they finally agreed to run the risk, and while the story was still running in the paper they issued a small edition of a few hundred copies, taking out what they supposed was a regular copy- right from the authorities in Washington, and put- ting the copyright line on the first book that came off the press. Then a very peculiar thing happened which after- ward became an integral part of the book’s history. The publisher of the Advance sent only a part in- stead of all the chapters of the serial publication to the Washington Copyright Bureau, instead of all as the law required. On account of that slight tech- nical error the book copyright was declared de- fective although the Copyright Bureau issued a copyright certificate to the publisher for the first book that came off the press. Before the defect was discovered by certain book publishers who are on the lookout for such defects, the Advance had printed and sold over 100,000 of the ten cent paper bound volumes, and the demand was increasing. That was in June of 1897. By THE STORY OF “IN HIS STEPS” 99 mid-summer sixteen different publishers in the United States had taken advantage of the defect in the copyright and were publishing the book in a large variety of editions. One firm in New York bought several hundred of the paper books from the Advance and put cloth covers on them, selling them for twenty-five cents, and also bought unbound sheets and made fifty cent books out of them. This firm alone put out over 100,000 of these cheaper books before it began to make its own plates and sell directly from its own bindery. From figures of publishing firms sent the author within the last five years by a number of the pub- lishers who issued ‘“‘In His Steps” all the way from twenty-five cents to two dollars a copy, it seems like a fair estimate to make, not counting the sales of publishers who have refused to tell how many copies they have made, that over 8,000,000 copies of “In His Steps” have been printed and read in America up to the present time. At this point it seems al- most necessary for the author to ask the reader to pardon him for what must seem to be an unforgiv- able egotism in the narration of the sales of the book. But he has no more a feeling of that sort than the reader has. It is simply a matter of his- tory in the story of books, and it is just as surprising to the author as it can be to any one, for he recalls one day in June getting a telegram from the dd- vance saying they had sold ten thousand copies, and 100 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY he remembers saying to his wife, ““Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the story went up to 15,000 copies?” Meanwhile the English publishers were putting out the book in even greater variety and volume than in America. The book was in the “public domain,”’ that is anyone’s property. The author had no more legal ownership in it than if he had never written it or thought of it. ‘Thirty different publishers in Great Britain issued the book all the way from paper penny editions running up into three millions of copies to elaborate illustrated holiday editions costing eight and a half shillings. The author had the pleasure one day in London of buy- ing from a seller on the Strand a penny copy which had printed on the front, “This is the nine hundred and seventy-first thousandth copy.” A bewildering controversy arose over the teach- ing of the book. Hundreds of pulpits took it up and sermons were preached all over Great Britain denouncing the attempt to do as Jesus would do, or advocating it. Religious journals like the Brit- ish Weekly week after week argued the theological soundness or unsoundness of the principles of the human conduct based on such an attempt to follow Jesus. Several expurgated editions were published correcting the author’s faulty theology by inserting the orthodox teaching of Christ. One of these, which the author cherishes as a literary curiosity, is entitled ‘“The Rescue of Loreen,” and it is inter- THE STORY OF “IN HIS STEPS” 101 spersed with conversations and preaching intended to counteract the very dangerous influence of the or- iginal story. The compiler of this interesting amended edition was a Mrs. J. B. Horton. Her pamphlet sold by the thousand alongside the original “In His Steps,” and was read by the extreme con- servatives as an antidote to the first story. One enterprising storekeeper in Glasgow had a special edition of “In His Steps” printed and put the name of his store as an advertisement on the bottom of every page of the book. One minister in a non- conformist chapel wrote the author that he had bought and given away a copy to every member of his church, some eight hundred in all, and hundreds of church members in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Can- ada, Australia, and New Zealand wrote saying they had done the same thing, making Christmas gifts to entire church memberships. The amount of cor- respondence that grew out of all this is almost un- believable. ‘The author is reluctant to even hint at the remarkable number and character of the letters that came and are still coming to him from all over the world. Again he would ask for the kindly judgment of the readers of this history. ‘The entire matter is as astonishing to him as to any one. He could have no anticipation or preparation for such an interest in his simple story everywhere. It came to him at the time and still comes with the same sense of 102 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY wonderment that people all over the world of almost every tongue and tribe seemed to understand and respond to the thing that had been written with fear and trembling and without thought of any wider audience than the little friendly group of young folks that faced him in the little church those Sunday evenings when he first read it for them and as he supposed for them alone. Altogether the combined sales of these thirty pub- lishers in Great Britain amounted, it is estimated, to over 10,000,000 copies. Added to those sales must be the output of the book publishers in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other British posses- sions, bringing the combined sales under the British flag up to 12,000,000. These figures are also based, as are those of the sales in the United States, on publishers’ estimates furnished the author at his request. Another embarrassment which the author is re- luctant to mention but which is a part of the book’s history, is the fact that after the book began to be sold everywhere he was overwhelmed by letters from persons and organizations asking for financial help. The writers took for granted, and they were not to blame for it, that a book which was selling up into the tens of millions must have netted the author a fortune in royalties. Therefore, as hundreds of the letters insisted, the author who had profited to THE STORY OF “IN HIS STEPS” 103 such an enormous extent and was rich, ought to live up to the teachings of his book and share with the poor and unfortunate, with churches, and strug- gling authors, and cripples, and farmers in debt; lift mortgages, help pay off obligations incurred by persons who had lost the savings of a lifetime by bad investments, and especially help the missionary enterprises of the world to spread the Gospel. The author of ‘‘In His Steps” has often wondered what would be the result of printing: the thousands of letters he has received during the last twenty-five years asking and demanding that he share his en- ormous fortune with others. One week he had over nine hundred letters. If there is a church denomina- tion or charitable institution in the United States that has not asked him for a contribution to its worthy cause he would like to know how it happened to omit the opportunity. Most of the letters began or closed the appeal for financial help by saying, “Brother, take it to your heart, what would Jesus do? Surely you cannot imagine Him clinging to the wealth you have received from your book. He would surely share it with others who are in need. You cannot imagine him refusing my request. What would Jesus do?” And, indeed, that is what the author has been ask- ing himself for about twenty-five years, meditating upon the fact that no doubt thousands of letter writers, to whom no reply could be sent explaining 104 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY the matter, are probably at this moment reflecting upon the heartlessness of a rich author to share as Jesus would with the needs of the poor and un- fortunate, and wondering if Brother Sheldon will ever get into heaven by the needle’s eye route. For as a matter of fact he has never received one dollar from the more than 22,000,000 of copies of ‘In His Steps’ printed and sold by more than fifty different publishers all over the world, on account of the defective copyright which threw the book into the public domain and took from the author every right he had in the work of his own brain and heart. There are two exceptions which must be noted. Mr. Bowden of the Bowden Publishing firm of London, who put out the penny paper editions of the book, sent him twenty pounds, or about one hundred dollars, after he had sold several million copies | not only of “In His Steps” but also of four other of the author’s books which had no international copy- right. And twenty-seven years after the first pub- lication of the book the firm of Grosset and Dun- lap, New York, gave him a check for $1,000 not because they were under any legal compulsion to do so, but of their own accord, allowing him one cent a copy on sales as shown by their books, of 100,000 copies. The Advance Publishing Company paid the author ten per cent royalty on all sales as long as they continued in the business, but their sales were ¢ d WHERE “IN HIS STEPS”? WAS WRITTEN. PORCH OF AUTHOR’S HOME, TOPEKA, KANSAS, 1896. es Z $i EB ERTES veg Hs BEETS : THE AUTHOR AND 36 DIFFERENT EDITIONS OF “IN HIS STEPS” “IN HIS STEPS’ TRANSLATIONS. % Pe “¥ ‘at ted oh ~ mf r) \ i“ ae : st » a ce ye. oa = » ? THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN DAILY 129 Observance: Market Reports: (Abbreviated, on account of some questionable transactions at the time on the stock markets.) Prison Reform: Li- quor advertisements in magazines: (A _ protest against them. Personal letters were written by Kan- sas people against them, and they were discarded from the magazines when contracts ran out.) Kan- sas Millers: Live Stock Market: Mormonism: The Tax Dodger: (With a cartoon by a well known artist.) The Union of the Churches: (A front page editorial.) Woman Suffrage: (Advo- cated.) Extracts from the Brewers’ Journal con- ceding progress of Prohibition in Kansas: Munici- pal Ownership: In Labor’s Behalf: Appeal for Cleaner Humor: Tenement House Reform: League of Mothers: Police Department: (A plea for better pay.) Women’s Clubs: The Y. W. C. A.: Dairying in Kansas: (A very valuable series of articles written by F. D. Coburn, then Secretary of Agriculture of Kansas. These articles were re- printed in papers all over the world.) Social Settle- ments: Against War: (Written by Dr. Parkhurst of New York.) Poem on front page, “If Christ Should Come Today,” by Helen A. Beard. Sunday School Lessons: Churches of Topeka: Letters from Ministers: Armenian Massacres: (A protest.) Disease Prevention. These, of course, were only a very few of the topics discussed in the seven issues of the paper as 180 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY published. Many of the articles were freely contri- buted; in fact, not one cent was paid for any contri- bution as the writers all agreed to contribute without compensation. Among the contributors were Bishop John H. Vincent who wrote the prayer which began the news on the first page of the first issue of the paper; Dr. J. E. Abbott, Bombay Mission; C. N. Howard, Rochester, New York; F. D. Coburn, Sec- retary State Agriculture; Governor W. E. Stanley; Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus; Whitelaw Reid; Associate Justice David J. Brewer; Wilbur F. Crafts; Frank Parsons; Leonard D. Abbott; Frank Beard, Car- toonist; also Myron A. Waterman contributed some very telling cartoons, and very many other local writers who wrote signed articles that were afterwards copied in many papers here and abroad. If the paper was characterized as dull by most of the newspaper correspondents as it was, it is also true that the subscribers received their money’s worth in contributed articles that even judged by the standard of the best magazines today were of the highest order as literary and valuable contribu- tions able to stand comparison with any monthly table of contents in any periodical of the present time. One reason for the assumption that the Christian daily was dull may be found in the fact that crime and scandal and sensational divorce cases were ab- sent from its pages. Crime when it was reported THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN DAILY 131 was reported briefly and the emphasis placed on the cause, and the remedy, which is the only scientific way to report crime. It is the way the Bible always reports it, and the Bible is the most scientific world news reporter that was ever compiled. It is a childish and useless way to depict human frailty simply for the sake of creating a mental sensation in the reader. Which is the regular and stupid man- ner of presenting human sin by those dailies that print elaborate stories of any moral lapses. The rule that was observed during the week was the rule of the Bible method, and in time that rule will be observed by all the daily press. An illustration of the plan to be pursued in case of what is generally used to create a mental excite- ment in the reader occurred in the office force of the Capital itself. A son of Senator Peffer of Kansas, who, by the way, was as highly respected and hon- ored by his townspeople and by Kansas generally as he was caricatured and dishonored by the public that did not know him, happened to be an employee on the Capital during the week I was in charge. He was working in the advertising section on Tuesday and at the end of the day went down to Kansas City, and in a fit of despondency committed suicide, leaving a note addressed to his father, say- ing, ‘Father, I don’t like to do what I am doing, but I am tired.” The fact of the suicide we published in the 132 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Thursday edition together with the note he had left, and after the item, I wrote,—‘‘The Capital extends to Senator Peffer and his family profound sympa- thy in the time of their trouble. May the God of all comfort bless and strengthen all those who mourn.” | The news of the suicide reached one of the Capi- tal reporters before we received it in the office, and I remember he came running in with it to me asking for instructions as to going right up to Senator Pef- fers home and interviewing the family to get inside facts about the affair. I not only refused to let any reporter go to the house, but I turned down a lengthy account of the matter which came up from Kansas City in which there was a detailed descrip- tion of the room where the young man was found, and more than a hint at some tragic motive other than the reason given in the note he left for his father. It seemed to me at the time and does yet and always will, that such a human tragedy should be reported, if at all, in the briefest and most sympa- thetic manner. I see nothing to be gained by relat- ing the ghastly details of human frailty and sin. Even the tremendous and unparalleled story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas is told in the gospel nar- rative in a space less than one-third of a newspaper column, and the Crucifixion itself occupies what would be only a little over a single column in a mod- ern metropolitan daily. The greatest examples we - THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN DAILY 133 know of ideal reporting of tragedy are to be found in the New Testament, and they are ideal because they do not attempt to report detail. The Capital being a morning paper had a Sunday edition. Owing to the fact that Sunday papers were then and are yet not popular with me it was at first something of a problem to know how we were to give our subscribers seven issues a week for their week’s subscription price. But with the combined and willing codperation of everyone on the paper, and at enormous loss of sleep and meals we issued a Saturday afternoon edition in place of the Sunday morning paper. ‘This edition was off the press at eleven fifteen Saturday morning, in spite of the fact that the Saturday morning issue did not come off the press until two thirty A. M. One reason for the overcoming of what seemed like superhuman difhi- culties was the fact that much of the matter that made up the Saturday afternoon edition was set up in advance the day before, for the afternoon paper was made up entirely of extracts from the Bible, and articles about it. There was not one line of local or national news in that issue. The main heading of the Saturday afternoon edi- tion was—‘‘The Bible: The Basis of Our Christian Civilization.” ‘The leading sentence on the head of the first column was Daniel Webster’s Epitaph, written by himself, and copied from his tomb at Marshfield, Massachusetts: 134 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY “Lord, I believe. Help Thou mine unbelief. Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me; but my heart has assured me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human production. This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience. The whole history of man proves it.” Immediately following this came the Sermon on the Mount which was printed from the revised ver- sion, entire. It occupied less than two columns. The rest of the paper, which was the regular eight page form published every day, was filled, outside the advertising space, with Bible teaching. Some of the topics were Usury; The Sabbath; Money and Riches; Marriage; Evil of Drink; War; The Future; The Love Chapter. There was a summary of the Bible in History furnished by the American Bible Society. The Christian Herald’s advertisement in this Saturday afternoon edition was given up entirely to featuring their Red Letter New Testament which prints all the sayings of Jesus in red ink. I think it can safely be said that after re- covering from their shock in having a newspaper without any news in it, many of the subscribers read for the first time, perhaps, the whole of the THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN DAILY 135 Sermon on the Mount at a sitting, and it may have been news to some of them. In an editorial printed on the front page I took occasion to preach a little sermon on the value of Sunday as a day of rest and worship. I also said to the subscribers, ‘“There has been no Sunday work on this paper. The press and mailing work stopped before midnight of Saturday. The carriers were instructed to deliver their papers in time to reach home themselves before Sunday. There will be no papers sold or delivered on Sunday with the ap- proval of the editor. May God bless the use of the press of the world to the glory of His kingdom on earth.” The story of this crude attempt to illustrate my thought of a Christian daily would not be complete or honest if there were not mention made of some of those who coéperated with the editor to carry out his plans. I am sorry that the lapse of time has dimmed my own memory of many worthy names. But I did insist on the printing of the roster of the Capital force, as it was turned over to me, every day at the head of the Editorial page. It men- tioned the names of those who were connected with the Editorial Staff, the Business Department, the Composing Room, the Stereotyping Room, the Press Room and the Mailing Room. Mr. Harold T. Chase, the present editor of the Capital, was my Associate Editor. He was the one person who 136 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY sat up nights with me and answered, or tried to, all sorts of questions about the technical details of the paper most of which displayed vast ignorance on my part, he wrestled with the cor- respondents, and racked his brains to find fillers which would pass the censor, he must have felt many times like throwing the entire edition into the Hell Box, and he must have sighed the sigh of relief of his life when the ghost walked Saturday night. But he never left me in the lurch at the yell of ‘Thirty !’? which sounded often from the composing room, and I can truly say it would have been ab- solutely impossible for me to have carried on that week if it had not been for the companionship and patience and enthusiasm and whole-hearted loyalty of Mr. Chase. The same must be said of the work done by the Business Manager, Mr. Dell Keizer, whom I did not see or companion with as I did with Mr. Chase, but the amount of work he did was marvelous, and he successfully met many problems which seemed in- soluble. ‘The account in this story of the way the paper was handled in its actual printing and distribution is his account and it is but a mere outline of the keen and intelligent and ready mind which he exercised at all points that week. He acted on every occasion as if the paper was an established fact a hundred years old, as if I owned it in fee simple, THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN DAILY 137 and there was not the shadow of a doubt in his mind that whatever was done was all right even when, I am sometimes constrained to believe, he felt back in his mind that it was all wrong. The same codperation and loyalty to the paper’s purpose was shown by Mr. J. Frank Jarrell, the News Editor at the head of the reportorial group. He was the very ideal of respect for the editor and his rulings, he never for one moment criticized or argued or cited past practices. He did as all the others did and acted as if the paper had come to stay for all time and we were working together on a plan that would be good for years. I have never ceased to feel keenly his loyalty and enthusiastic support all through that nerve-testing week. Of Mr. Robert Maxwell’s work as Foreman in the Press Room I did not have close acquaintance, but I had reason to be thankful and always will be for the skill and faithfulness he showed every min- ute as he nursed the old Capital Press along from the ordinary task of running off twelve or fifteen thousand copies a day to one hundred and twenty or twenty-seven thousand a day. He could no doubt write a book about how he did it, and if he ever does I will buy the first copy. Mr. John P. Fritts was our Washington cor- respondent. Miss Jessie M. Garwood, who was afterwards married to him by me in the first wed- ding ever celebrated in the Central Congregational 188 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Church, was the Society and Club reporter. Inas- much as there was no society news printed in the entire edition, I cannot recall exactly what Miss Garwood really did. I remember the disgust that spread over certain portions of Topeka society when certain social events were not reported as usual. But it seemed to me then and it does yet that there are so many really important things going on in this world that the event of Mrs. Somebody inviting other Mrs. Somebodies to a lunch or a dance to- gether with the list of guests, male and female, is so small that it does not deserve any place in a daily account of the doings of the sons and daughters of men. At any rate there were no accounts of society doings in the paper that week, and I am inclined to think that the society reporter enjoyed a needed rest and had time to read the interesting correspond- ence that the young man in Washington was send- ing in. There were so many persons connected with the making and distributing of the paper that personal mention of them, even of the heads of departments, is impossible. Mr. H. S. Houston was the Eastern manager and he displayed remarkable talent in se- curing codperation of eastern newspaper men. Mr. P. C. Chamberlain was the Circulation manager and his week was as unusual as that of any other he had ever known. Mr. George W. Hart, the Associated Press Operator stood by his place with a persistence THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN DAILY 139 and patience that I have never ceased to marvel over. Mr. Clyde Reed, who routed out the paper, has already been mentioned in the Business Man- ager’s account. His was pioneer work and no one could have faced the unusual in journalism with more courage and resourcefulness. I do not believe that any man ever had a more loyal support for what must have seemed to some of those who were on the pay roll of the Capital to be a fantastic experiment of little or no value. I am convinced after this lapse of time that in the nature of the case many of the employees and work- ers on the Capital staff must have looked upon me as a freak or at least as perhaps a little off. But if they did, they did not show it, and I doubt if a picked body of personally trained journalists spe- cially educated to make a Christian daily could have entered into the general policy of the paper any more enthusiastically and faithfully than did the entire body of regular employees and also those who were employed as extras. In the opening editorial of the issue of Tuesday, March 13, I said that I would receive no financial compensation but that a share of the profits might be given to some benevolent work. At the end of the week $5,000 was deposited in the bank subject to my order, and $1,000 was sent to the India Famine Relief, $1,000 was used to build a hospital room for the city jail, $1,000 was given to Washburn 140 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY College, $500 to the Topeka Young Men’s Christian Association, $500 to the Orphans’ Home, $500 for a city drinking fountain, and the balance was divided among the other charitable institutions of the city. During the week of the paper I averaged about three hours’ sleep a day. I had a room at a down- town hotel and did not go home but once during the week. If I had it to do again I would not change in any radical way the plan that was fol- lowed. It was clearer to me than to any one else that the experiment was only at its best a hint of what might be. I have faith to believe that the ideal Christian daily is going to be evolved some- time perhaps by the combined money and energy and talent of the Protestant churches of America. The fact that one of the great denominations has lately asked for such a daily is significant. In any case I have never ceased to feel the deepest interest in a journalism that might be in the highest sense a living word, speaking every turn of the earth for the welfare of men, and helping to create a practical happiness and good will in the hearts of all who read it and honor its daily Voice by following the beckoning of the majestic thing called The Truth. In looking over the press notices which com- mented on the paper I find that the most frequent criticism, made oftener by ministers than by any one else, was the severe objection to the thought of Jesus taking any part in such a prosaic and material THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN DAILY 141 thing as a daily paper. The terms ‘blasphemous,’ “sacrilegious,” “irreverent,” are the terms used to describe what the critics called an irreligious at- tempt to think of Jesus as participating in any of the common everyday things that mere human be- ings have to do for a living. This thought of Jesus in history is so strange to me that I cannot let this account of an attempt to imitate Jesus in the work of journalism pass without comment. The entire concept of Christianity to my mind is entirely stripped of its tremendous meaning if we do not think of Jesus as the most vitally inter- ested Being that ever lived, in the common everyday doings of humanity. If Jesus could not take part in the publishing of a daily paper, then He could not participate in any other energy that we have to use in order to make a living. Hundreds of ministers in these press notices said that Jesus would never de- scend to anything except preaching. ‘They seem to forget that the greater part of His life was passed in a carpenter’s shop, and that the tables and benches and common wooden things in many a home of Nazareth were doubtless made by His hands. It is a monstrous perversion of all our right ideas of the Redeemer of the world to place Him in a posi- tion that removes Him from the everyday life of mankind. ‘The vast majority of the people of this world are not preachers and missionaries and teach- ers but working men and women, toiling over some 142 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY task that has to do with material things, with tools of hard dirty labor, with common earthly things that have to do with the production of food and the preparation of it for the table. The thought of Jesus that makes it sacrilegious for us to think of Him as engaged in any form of honest work is so contrary to His own teaching and life that I do not understand how any minister of the gospel ever came to call it by that term. I am inclined to think the whole false definition of Jesus goes back to the whole false thought of a Divine Being. It takes centuries to clear the human mind of the falsehood of a God who sits on a throne and does nothing but sit there and meditate on the awful sins of the creatures He has made. But the thought of a Divine Being who walks with men on the earth, who eats with them and goes out fishing with them and takes his turn at the oar, as no doubt Jesus did, who even goes so far as to provide with His own hands a breakfast for a number of tired and hungry fishermen, and to do it after He was’a risen and eternal spirit,—that thought is so great to me that the idea of Jesus trying to publish a necessary daily paper for the welfare of mankind is not only not “sacrilegious” or “irreverent” but any other thought of Him is absolutely contrary to His pur- pose in coming into the world. We have no such thing as Christianity unless we have a definition of it in terms of abundant life, as wide as man’s THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN DAILY 143 activity, and as sacred as the everyday toil of the hands of Him who was nailed on a cross because He angered the Pharisees in letting His disciples satisfy their hunger as they walked through the wheat fields of Palestine on that Sabbath morning two thousand years ago. CHAPTER SIX THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON This is not going to be a dull recital of a prohibi- tion campaign, but simply a plain everyday account of some of the things that occurred during what was to me one of the most exciting and interesting speak- ing programs ever carried on in this country. I can speak of it that way because the initiative for it and the planning of it were due to the work of two very remarkable men, Governor J. Frank Hanly of Indiana and Oliver Wayne Stewart of Illinois. Brooding over the evils of the saloon and distil- lery for years, Governor Hanly finally determined to enlist personally in a speaking campaign that would make an impression on the minds and consciences of the entire nation. And as a preliminary to the plan that was working out in his own mind, he and Mr. Stewart together addressed large mass meetings in several states and created sentiment and enthusiasm for a nation-wide movement looking towards na- tional prohibition. This was during the years 1913 and 1914. Dur- ing that period a large sum of money was raised by voluntary pledges and gifts to finance the plan that 144 THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 145 was afterwards carried out. Twenty-five thousand dollars of that amount was given by Governor Hanly to the temperance workers of California just before their election, and was used effectively to bring about the final result in that state. ‘The out- line of the plan of the Squadron, never before tried by any temperance society, was unique and as soon as it was put into concrete form it caught the popu- lar imagination and made possible its practical success. The first part of this plan was to organize three groups of people who would be in perfect sympathy with the purpose of the plan, and would work together to carry it out. The purpose was the creation of national sentiment and enthusiasm for national prohibition of the liquor traffic. The pro- gram of the plan was the covering of the entire country with a succession of prohibition meetings, non-sectarian and non-political but at the same time so interesting and unusual that a whole town or city would be attracted to them, in spite of the hack- neyed word “prohibition.” The statements that Governor Hanly sent out be- fore the campaign actually began are so admirable and characteristic of the man that they will bear re- peating: “Our field is the United States; Our dream a Saloonless Land, a Stainless Flag, a Sober People; 146 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY To be attained through an enlightened, an aroused and a crystallized public opinion. “We are not officially connected with any other existing temperance organization. We are the friends of all; the enemies of none. We war only against the Liquor Traffic. ‘“The campaign in which we are engaged has, we believe, no parallel in the history of any movement. When completed it will be without precedent. While we go to help any local fight that may be on, or any state contest that may be waging, ours is the National struggle. We battle for the nation. The event is in the hand of God.” Three groups of people consisting of speakers, singers and musicians were formed with the under- standing that no salaries would be guaranteed, that if necessary nothing but the actual travel expenses would be met, and that the Cause itself would be all the reward that any member of the Squadron would expect to receive. In that spirit it is safe to say that every member of the Squadron enlisted for what proved to be for those who were with it to the end the most unique experience that any one of them — had ever known. | While these groups were being chosen Mr. Stew- art with the help of railroad experts made out the train route, including the towns and cities to be vis- ited. ‘This involved an immense and complicated study of railroad time tables and called for advance THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 14’ work out in the field by agents to make dates, secure speaking places, arrange for local committees, church cooperation, advertising by press and local bulletins and wall and street posters and all the detailed pub- licity necessary for a series of meetings that con- templated covering the entire United States within eight months’ time. The way in which Mr. Stew- art worked out this entire program of railroad and hotel and travel plan may be judged from the fact that the Squadron visited two hundred and fifty-five | cities and towns in two hundred and thirty-five days’ without a date or a place being missed. It is not boasting to say that such a travel program was never before carried out and none like it has ever been at- tempted by any group of theatrical or entertainment people or by any political group. Railroad men said after the Squadron had finished its meetings at At- lantic City that the record of continuous train con- nections made without any special favors of any road was absolutely without any comparison in all the annals of railroading. The name “Squadron” was coined by Richmond Pearson Hobson and the term ‘“‘Flying’”’ was added to it as a fit adjective. The name caught the popu- lar fancy and was apparently descriptive of the ac- tual course of the organization as it moved daily across the United States in its three groups that suc- ceeded one another in the successive meetings held for three successive days in each town visited. 148 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY The campaign began in the biggest whisky center in the United States, Peoria, [linois, September 30, 1914. The first group of speakers, singers and mu- sicians had two meetings, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening, took up a free will offering to defray the expenses of the Squadron, and moved on the next morning to Galesburg, Illinois. ‘The second group moved into Peoria and held the same meetings there while the first group was in Galesburg, and when they moved on to Galesburg, the third group started their meetings in Peoria as the first group went on to Kansas City, Missouri. This was the plan followed for eight months con- tinuously, including Saturdays and Sundays, as the Flying Squadron campaign did not permit of any rest days for the members. A summary of the states and the places visited from the date of September 30, 1914, may be interesting, taking the itinerary by months. The states entered for meetings in the month of October were Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, Washington. In November the Squadron entered and had daily meetings in Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massa- chusetts and New Hampshire. In December the three groups in turn went into Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, the District of THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 149 Columbia, Maryland, West Virginia and Ohio. The January campaign began on the first day of 1915 in Evansville, Indiana, at a time when on ac- count of the New Year festivities all over the city the statement was made that the Squadron meet- ings would not be attended. The largest hall in the city was crowded and overflowed at each of the two meetings held by the first group, and when the next two groups came on, overflow meetings were neces- sary. During this month the Squadron moved along into Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Michi- gan, New York and Pennsylvania. February saw the Squadron speaking all the way from Maine to Florida. The route followed was New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Caro- lina, Georgia and Florida. During the dead of winter in New England we were never blocked by the snow and the attendance on the meetings even during very severe weather taxed the capacity of the halls and churches to the limit of space. The first day of March saw the first team of the Squadron in Orlando, Florida. From there the three groups moved west through Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisi- ana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. April began the campaign in Colorado and swept across Wyoming, back into Colorado, into Utah, 150 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Idaho, Colorado again, Nebraska, Missouri, Kan- sas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri again, lowa, Wiscon- sin and Indiana. In May the meetings began in Ohio, went into Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, back into Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York and New Jersey. During the four days of June that the meetings continued we went into Wilmington, Delaware; Phil- adelphia; Camden, New Jersey, and held the closing meetings at Atlantic City, Sunday, June 6, 1915. A summary of the log of the Flying Squadron be- ginning with September 30, 1914, and ending with June 6, 1915, shows that the three groups of speak- ers addressed one million and a half people, be- sides receiving unusual quantities of press notice, in some cases amounting to special editions of dailies. Every capital city of every state was entered by every one of the three groups. ‘The entire country from the Atlantic to the Pacific was traversed twice and from the Lakes to the Gulf almost four times; the entire distance traveled was 65,000 miles. Not a single date out of 235 different towns and cities was missed and because it was possible in some states to enter two cities on the same day, the Squadron actually spoke in 255 different towns. All this in- side of eight morths counting out one week of the Christmas holidays, when no meetings were held. During the actual speaking tour the speakers and THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 151 singers and musicians had no rest days, Saturdays being all listed and on Sundays extra overflow meet- ings were in a majority of cases called for on ac- count of the great audiences and the intense inter- est and enthusiasm. ‘Ihe expenses of the three groups were met entirely by the free will offerings of the people who attended the meetings. There was not any fund aside from these daily gifts, with the exception of one gift of $10,000 made at the begin- ning of the campaign by the Hon. John B. Lewis of Boston. When the final accounting was made of the financial standing of the Squadron after the June 6 meeting at Atlantic City, the report of the Treasurer showed that every bill had been met in- cluding very large printing and hotel and hall rental bills, including the entire expenses of the members of the Squadron and enough left to enable the members to get home. When all matters were finally settled each member of the organization received a small amount, averaging less than $100 apiece. The stories of the liquor men published in their organs that this was the greatest exhibition of graft ever imposed on the American public was scarcely borne out by the fact that every member of the Squadron had taken eight months out of a busy life to risk health and position and even life itself in the extraor- dinary expenditure of unparalleled service, all for less than $100 as a final payment in money. In all, the public which sustained the traveling expenses of 152 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY eighteen or twenty men and women in this speak- ing campaign contributed in free will offerings over $125,000. This money came in the form of cash, of checks, of pledges made payable in thirty days. And to the credit of the public be it said that the pledges were paid with practically no lapses or need of reminder afterwards. For assistance in handling the necessary business of the different groups each had a secretary whose business it was to engage sleeping accommodations on trains, reservations at hotels, see to the publicity and the sale of books and other printed matter car- ried by the Squadron and after the meetings were over at night to count the money, check up, and whenever possible bank it or leave with the hotel for the last group headed by Governor Hanly. Also the Secretary was the trouble clerk for every conceivable sort of emergency that might arise from the loss of suit cases en route to warning the mem- bers of his group of train time, and waking them up when they fell asleep at Junctions. But the matter of counting the money very soon assumed such serious proportions that every member of the group including the speakers and singers and musicians soon had to be called in to help the Secre- tary in this duty. One illustration will tell the story of the daily and nightly task after a long day of speaking and the strain of facing immense audiences often without sufficient time to eat or rest properly. THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 153 When we left Topeka, Kansas, March 30, after the evening meeting we took a Santa Fé train at midnight for Rocky Ford, Colorado. In a suit case in charge of the Secretary was the evening offering, $927 in cash, from one cent to a dollar in hard money, bills from one to ten denomination, checks, and pledges, the latter on cards we had printed for the purpose, and large amounts of the paper money in envelopes which were sealed. Along with the envelopes were small lead pencils about two inches long which we gave out with each envelope. For these we had paid for the first lot we bought, $500. After an offering had been taken these pencils were thrown into the baskets together with the money and the cards and envelopes. This entire mess we poured out into one of the sleeping berths the minute we entered the train and began to sort out and check up. It was three o’clock in the morning when we finally had the $927 rolled up, the pledges listed by themselves, the checking up gone over by every member and the Secretary’s O. K. certified for Governor Hanly to be left in the bank at the next town. We had a little sleep, waked up in Colorado and rolled into Rocky Ford in time to walk out of the train into the Hall for our two-thirty P. M. meeting before going to the hotel or seeing the town. This task of counting the daily free will offer- ing soon came to be reckoned by the members of the 154 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY groups as one of the regular daily tasks which had in it a certain pleasurable excitement. I was given the part of counting the silver and nickels and pennies and rolling them up in paper wrappers according to each coin’s denomination and soon acquired the offi- cial title of the ‘Holy Roller.’’ During those pe- riods after the days’s orating was over and the shouting and the applause of the multitude had ceased, it was not altogether like an anti-climax to spread the day’s offering out on the hotel bed and without any mercenary feeling wonder how much it was this time. ‘here was one sober occasion when our division closed a day’s work and at the end, after the money had been all counted to the last re- ligious penny, we found that there was just enough to pay our hotel bill and secure our transportation to the next town. After we had bought a small lunch with the remains of the small change the mem- bers all together found in their own pockets, we went into the afternoon meeting before an immense crowd and another in the evening that choked the aisles and sat all over the platform, each one of us realizing as he soared his best with prohibition argu- ment and eloquence that our combined financial cap- ital did not amount to enough to buy the evening paper that told of the “wonderful prohibition meet- ing at the Auditorium this afternoon.”’ But the offering of that day put over five hundred dollars into the balance for Governor Hanly to check up ee THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 155 when his division came along. Take it all in all the free will offerings that kept us going were astonish- ing in nearly every state and especially in the south which was suffering at that time from great finan- cial depression from nine cent cotton and all sorts of losses. But in spite of warnings sent to Gover- nor Hanly by well-meaning prohibition friends not to go into the south for fear of total failure, the southern states were more lavish with their money, as far as they had any, than any other part of the United States, and among all our memories of dif- ferent sections, brief and fleeting and swiftly passing as they all were, the pictures of the South, of the enthusiasm and heartiness and response to speakers and singers and to the Squadron idea generally are vivid with outline and color. I shall always re- member my late-at-night task of filling the office of the ‘Holy Roller” and I can truly say that never before nor since have I handled and counted and rolled so much money. And the strange thing about the money part of the campaign was that the sec- ond division always had a larger offering than the first, which was mine, and when Governor Hanly and his third group came along to hold the same kind of meeting in the same town and with an audience that must have been made up of about the same people, he secured more than the first or the second divi- sions, and sometimes as much as both of them put together. 156 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY The inscriptions on the money envelopes, es- pecially while the Squadron was passing through the south, were revelations of the feelings of the givers. Here are a few of them: “With a prayer.” Gastar Nesp ateooing.” “A saved booze fighter.” “All right, Governor.” “God help you fight the traffic for the sake of my boys.” “T wish it were $10,000.” ‘From one whose brother went to a drunkard’s death by the pistol route.” ‘Two blood relations cursed with the foul thing you are fighting.” “God speed the work.” “Five dollars in memory of Lincoln’s Birthday, LOLS “My third gift to a beloved cause.” And yet some people in the United States and many overseas wondered that a nation could in such a short time by popular vote and by a deliberate act of the people’s congress pass a national pro- hibitory law. ‘They did not realize the deep and passionate conviction in the breast of the common people of this country that the liquor trafic had traded away its right to be a part of the business life of the nation on account of its record as a crime and sorrow-producing thing, unworthy to live. As THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 157 we went on our daily journey over the states and saw the crowds that thronged under every condition of weather and every opposition from a hostile press that in some towns ridiculed and made light of _ popular demonstration we knew that the end of the saloon was not far off. But the press as a whole helped the Squadron with splendid reports of the daily programs and also with editorial comment. It was a different press from that of ten or even five years before. It had begun to sense the people’s demand, and with the exception of a few of the great metropolitan dailies the Squadron had great backing from most of the papers in every state. I am more than glad to pay this tribute because the daily press twenty-five years ago was carrying page advertisements of beer and whisky and lending aid and support to the traffic. But that day has gone forever. The dramatic incidents that occurred during the eight months’ campaign of the Squadron would make a library. They were of such a variety and char- acter that not even a daily diary could give a record of them. In Rochester, New York, our meeting was in a Baptist Church. Dr. D. V. Poling, the uncle of Dan A. Poling, my colleague as speaker in the first division, was our singer. He was late that after- noon in coming on the platform, and when the chair- man announced his number he was just entering the 158 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY church. To avoid passing in front of the people who were seated on the platform Dr. Poling opened a door at the rear of the platform which he sup- posed opened on a rear platform passage, and stepped into the baptistry which had been left full of water. The chairman being deaf did not hear the splash as Dr. Poling went under, and announced his name again as the singer of the day. But Dan Poling rose to the occasion and announced with great gravity, “Mr. Chairman and ladies and gen- tlemen, I regret to say that my uncle has just joined the ‘Wets’!’’ It should be said for Dr. Poling’s reputation for being a “good sport’ that after he emerged from his plunge he ran back to the hotel, made a rapid change of garments and appeared again in time to take his place on the program to the delight of the audience. That day the singers and musicians received more enthusiastic applause than the two speakers together. The erratic train schedule of the Squadron made anything like regular physical habits absolutely im- possible. The evening meetings never closed before nine thirty; oftener it would be ten o’clock before we were back at the hotel to pack up, count the offer- ing, or if impossible to pour it into a suit case and make a hurry run to the train for the night ride to the next town. Meals were eaten at any hour. It is safe to say that there was not one hour in the twenty- THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 159 four excepting the time we were on the platform speaking that we did not at some time or other utilize for eating. We boarded trains at all hours of the day and night. We made our toilets on the sleepers oftener than anywhere else. We ate at 3 and 4 o’clock A. M. in Greek restaurants. We broke every rule of diet and sleep and exercise and every rule of rest and recreation that was ever made for the welfare of the physical system, and yet every member of every division emerged from the grilling campaign in good condition. There were of course times when individual speakers and sing- ers came near a breakdown under the terrific strain. All of us lived at a high and abnormal pitch. Our nerves were on edge as are the nerves of profes- sional evangelists occasionally. We grew brain fagged and I think it is a matter of record that sometimes we took naps while our colleagues were speaking the same speech we had heard two hundred and thirty times twice a day. But if any theatrical or political group ever succeeded in closing their engagements or campaigns in better physical and mental condition we have never heard of it. As Governor Hanly said at the last meeting where all three divisions met for the final account of the cam: paign, “A kind Providence has kept all of us in a miraculous way. We are unable to find a reason for the astonishing summing up of this experience unless 160 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY we give the Divine Power the praise for sustaining us while we have been engaged in a holy cause.” The results of the Flying Squadron experiment ought to be told by others rather than by members of the organization. ‘The state of Washington through its citizens and press announced that the Squadron’s visit just before the state election in November put the state in the prohibition column. Other states made the same announcement of the conversion of thousands to the national prohibition attitude. Whatever direct or indirect influence the campaign may have had, it seems as if there is little question that the general result was what Governor Hanly anticipated. It stirred into practical action an aroused public opinion. The ‘‘event was in the hand of God,” and after-history seems to bear out the anticipation of victory for national legislation, which was predicted at the first meetings held in the whisky stronghold of Peoria, and announced again at the wonderful closing meeting at Atlantic City. In any case, national prohibition is now a part of our national policy, and the act making it so will never be repealed. If the members of the Squadron have reason to believe that their service helped even slightly to make it what it is, that is their reward. Whatever else may be said about it, again it is true, as Governor Hanly predicted, that ‘“The campaign had no parallel, and when completed it was without precedent.” THE STORY OF THE FLYING SQUADRON 161 The personnel of the Flying Squadron was made up of men and women who enlisted without any thought of personal gain or public applause. It is an honorary roll, and I think it ought to have a place in this story. Governor J. Frank Hanly, of Indiana. Oliver Wayne Stewart, of Illinois. Daniel A. Poling, of Massachusetts. Ira Landrith, of Tennessee. John B. Lewis, of Massachusetts. C. N. Howard, of New York. Dr. Carolyn E. Geisel, of Michigan. Clarence True Wilson, of the District’ of Columbia. Wilbur F. Sheridan, representing the Epworth League Society. Eugene W. Chafin, of Arizona. Charles M. Sheldon, of Kansas. These were the Squadron’s speakers and they were not all with the Squadron during its entire eight months’ tour. Near the last half of the first lap of travel it became evident that the efficiency of the meetings would be increased by reducing the number of speakers in each division to two instead of three which was the number carried at the begin- ning. On that account some of the members who had joined at the opening of the campaign retired or took up outside service. 162 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY The singers and musicians who served all or part of the time the campaign was carried on were: Dr. D. V. Poling, of Oregon. | Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Butler, of New York. William Lowell Patton, of Oregon. Miss Vera K. Mullin, of Indiana. Miss Iris E. Robinson, of Indiana. A large part of the success of the Squadron was due to the remarkable work of the secretaries. Theirs was the unseen and laborious task of details of publicity, and the business of keeping accounts and looking after the endless matters that made the ofice force back in Indianapolis indispensable. Among them were: | Mr. Edward E. Mittman, the Executive Secre- tary. Lewis Hallie McNeil, of Indianapolis. Robert S. Henry, of Tennessee. Richey S. Middleton, of West Virginia. L. Stanley Fellows, of Brooklyn, N. Y. Miss Jeanette Zweier, of New York City. CHAPTER SEVEN THE TOPEKA MINISTRY I began my Kansas Ministry in Topeka, on Jan- uary 6, 1889, in a room over a meat market, where our meetings were all held while the new church building was being completed, into which we moved six months later. At the first communion held in April of that year we numbered just 100 members, and I knew nearly all my people by their first names. Twenty-five years later when the membership had increased to 1,000 members I could not say the same, but I often wished I could. The first thing I want to say about the church is a tribute to the perfect freedom it gave the minister. During my entire pastorate of thirty years including three years when the people gave me leave of absence for outside lecture and con- ference work, I doubt if any pastor ever enjoyed a greater sense of independence for speech and ac- tion than I had. And for that boon I have never ceased to feel grateful, for of all things that com- bine to make the pastor of a church contented and ambitious I do not know of anything that equals his knowledge that he is not dominated or re- 163 164 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY strained by persons or conditions in the parish that place a suspicious or restricted circle about his preaching and his parish ministrations. I can truly say that for thirty years I never felt for one mo- ment the slightest attempt on the part of any of my parishioners to interfere with new experiments or make theological boundaries for pulpit utterances. I do not believe there was ever a freer atmosphere granted any minister in any church in America than was given to me by my people. I have already spoken of some phases of parish work and need not enlarge on those plans which were tried and sometimes followed up but at other times abandoned when the trial proved of no value. But I find in tracing the growth of my Kansas church life that it falls quite sensibly into three general periods,—the building of the church; the adven- ture of travel in the interest of reform and church development; and the use of writing as a means of expressing what I found could not be worked out by the sermonic method. I can truly say that the building of a church car- ries with it more real pleasure and downright joy than any other business known to the sons of men. At least I believe it does, without ever having car- ried on any other business except farming and news- paper work. I soon found that the ministry was a twofold thing, composed of pulpit and pew. A church cannot be built by the minister alone, neither THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 165 can it be built by the pew alone. It is a codperative process, and carries its own reward with it in pro- portion to the self-sacrifice and devotion that both parties are willing to give to it. I have never been able to discover any way to separate the pulpit from the parish. Neither have I been able to find any way to build a church with- out the combined effort of preaching and parish labor. A minister cannot preach effectively to his people on Sunday unless he knows them and loves them on Monday. If there were times (and there were many of them) when I felt that my sermons did not help any one in the church building, I always had a conviction that somehow before an- other Sunday came around I would earn my salary by helping someone during the week that I had missed when I tried to preach to him. The church grew in its healthiest way, as the years went on, by gradual additions from the Bible School. Several months in the year I found myself planning Sunday morning sermons for the children. Out of those periods came ingatherings of church members including children of all ages. If the par- ents of children in the parish felt that their children understood what the Christian life meant, and what church membership meant, not with an adult mind but with a child’s mind, we received them into the full membership, and there were very few lapses as they grew up into the church life. There were 166 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY some questions about receiving seven-year-old chil- dren, but I noticed as the time went on that most of these children were more faithful to their church vows than most of the older people, including some who thought it might not be wise to receive them. The regular additions to the membership aver- aged 50 a year for twenty years, a majority of the accessions coming from the young life in the parish. I shall always believe that the most satisfactory evangelistic part of a minister’s program will be the regular work of making Christians out of his own Sunday School members. ‘That in the long run will bring memberships into the church body far more certainly and with greater permanency than special efforts directed to “reach the masses”’ out- side. That is not to disparage the work of pro- fessional evangelists, but it is simply to express my own experience in the work of building up a church. Very few churches are built up by evangelistic efforts made to reach outsiders. And while the minister is only rarely a good evangelist, in the sense that he can hold mass evangelistic meetings, all minis- ters ought to be able to evangelize their own people by regular methods of preaching and teaching. When the church was twenty years old it needed a new home on account of its growing family. So the people made their pledges up to the amount necessary to start the building and paid interest on borrowed money enough to complete it, and then did THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 167 as many western churches are in the habit of doing, cleared off all indebtedness of every sort about seven or eight years after the first pledges were made. This was in the spring of the year 1914, that memorable year of our Lord and of Mars. In the year 1912 the church gave me a leave of absence as Minister-at-Large in order to answer calls for temperance and conference work in this country and abroad, and called to the parish Dr. Roy B. Guild who had been one of my boys in training. It was during the next three years while I was away that the church increased steadily in membership and raised the last of its pledges and paid off its obligation for full ownership of the church building, and it was during that time that I met some of the most interesting people, and my ministry continued the second stage or period which included the travel and adventure of that most fas- cinating of all human experiences when human ac- quaintance takes account of personalities and begins to grasp something of the wonderful story of earth life as it becomes a thing of communion with others. If I may be permitted at this point to be allowed to ignore particular dates as they were recorded on the calendar, I want to share with you some of the pleasure I received not only during those three years when I was permitted to wander from the parish bounds out into the wider world, but at times before that three-year period when certain persons ~ 168 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY became not simply a part of my own history but will always remain a definite part of the history of very many times and important events, as I recall their place in my own meeting with them. So what follows is not any formal attempt to make careful pen drawings of some most remarkable peo- ple, but rather to express as near as I can the im- pression made on my own mind and I hope heart also by those who will always remain in my memory as a part of my church life, because I met most of them during the active connection with the parish in Topeka. There are two men who have influenced the lives of more preachers in America than any others, and those men are Henry Ward Beecher and Phillips Brooks. I never met Beecher to know him per- sonally, and saw him only once, in my Senior year at Brown University when he lectured in a winter course down-town. But during my first year in Topeka, I faced a most perplexing problem in my church and did not know which way to turn for the help I needed. One of the things I missed all through my ministry was the personal help I might have received from a pastor. The minister is the one man in the parish who has none. Neither, in the Congregational Church, does he have a bishop. The nearest he gets to spiritual adviser is some devoted deacon or consecrated member, and even then it is not like going to his own minister. So I ventured THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 169 to write a letter to Phillips Brooks, at that time the great preacher at Trinity, Boston. He answered my questions immediately and helpfully. I prize his reply as one of the most precious answers to a most difficult situation that I have ever known. The amazing thing about it to me was that a man who was so busy, and bound by so many duties would take the time to answer with his own pen (it was before the days of type- writers) the problems of a raw young preacher who in a moment of almost despair, turned to him, thoughtless of the fact that he had added one more to the thousands of others who had turned in their need to the same great heart for sympathy and wis- dom. Phillips Brooks will always be one of the great ones of the earth to me because I learned afterwards that he always answered letters like mine. ) It was only a few months after this that I had a letter from the poet Whittier. I had become in- volved in a dispute with some working men who had been coming to church Sunday evenings, and who insisted that the church as an institution was aristocratic and worldly and ministered to the rich and cared little for the masses. One of these men, after a Sunday night when I had preached on the Universal Brotherhood, came up, and in what seemed to me like an unfair spirit of narrow criti- cism charged the church with about every unchristian 170 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY motive. He was well read, and as we talked he quoted Whittier’s lines: ‘“The church, to place and power the door, Rebukes the sins of the world no more, Nor sees its Lord in the homeless Poor.” “That is a description of your church,” he said as we parted that night. “It is condemned by one of America’s greatest poets.”’ I was passionately devoted to the church as an institution. It had always stood in history for me as the one thing that was the hope of the world. I took as a personal insult to my dearest friend the attack of the workingman who stood outside and criticized, ignorant of the inner history of an organ- ization that was beyond his understanding. But the quotation from Whittier troubled me, and after a day or two I wrote the poet asking him if he really meant by those lines to condemn the church as a whole. His reply was as simple and clear as his own inner life. He wrote; ‘The lines referred to by thy anti- church friend were written of the church fifty years ago. I believe the church of the present time is com- mendably active in deeds of kindness and mercy, more and more becoming an example of love to God and man.”’ This was almost the last letter the poet wrote. I cherish it, together with the one from Phillips THE TOPEKA MINISTRY LT Brooks, as a personal voice that spoke good cheer at a time when I greatly needed it. But when I showed Whittier’s letter to the “‘anti-church friend” he simply said, ‘‘Whittier does not know the present day church as we do,” meaning by ‘we’ the work- ing men that he represented. After that, I stopped arguing with people who criticize the church. During my ministry I belonged to what was known as the Fortnightly Club, a group of business and professional men, some twenty-five in number, who met twice a month to listen to a paper written and read by one of the members and afterwards criticized in three-minute talks. To one of these meetings we invited Dr. Lyman Abbott at a time when he was traveling over the West for the purpose of studying the public convictions on great themes. The Outlook, of which Dr. Abbott was editor, had not believed in prohibition, and indeed had criticized its working in the states where it had been made a part of the constitutional law. So we in- vited him to be our guest one evening and at his own request the topic for discussion was the result of prohibition in Kansas. For nearly three hours we bombarded him with facts. The Chief Justice of our Supreme Court, Judge Johnston, was a member of the Club and he gave Dr. Abbott a most convincing argument for prohibition, basing it on his own observation on the bench. Every other member spoke with em- 172 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY phasis on the immense benefits received from the law, commercially, socially, and morally. After we were through, Dr. Abbott asked a great many shrewd questions, and we answered them. He did not make any comments, as he said he was studying public questions in a receptive mood. But as we were going out, after the meeting was over he said to me, ‘Prohibition seems to work out here, but it would never work in a city like New York. It is not practical for large city communities.” But before he died, Dr. Abbott in the columns of the Outlook championed the cause of national prohibition, and I am sure he finally came to the conclusion that any good law can be as well enforced in a large city as in a small one. As a matter of fact the prohibitory law is no more disobeyed in New York than some other laws, and the national prohibitory law has taken out of politics the saloon and all that went with its blasting influence. During one year of travel I spoke for Christian Endeavor in over one hundred cities in America and Canada. And among all the persons I met at that time none so impressed me with his simple common sense and earnestness as Dr. Francis E. Clark, the President of that world-wide organization. I traveled very many miles with him, was often a guest in his home and had the rare privilege of being often on the same speaking platform with him. His genial, modest, kindly spirit will always rest like a THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 173 benediction on the millions of young hearts he has blest, but on none of them I believe more than on my own. He was a most wonderful fellow traveler, and the history of the church will give him an honored and great place among its builders and teachers. In the three years’ absence from the church while I was speaking under the rather wide sounding title of ‘‘Minister-at-Large,” it was a rare privilege to meet very many delightful people. I often wish I had kept a note book or address book at that time, but my habits in that direction have always been failures. I start out bravely, buy a handsome address book, inscribe my own name and address in it, put down the date and place of my first lecture engagement, make one or two uninteresting remarks about the town and then either lose the book or lose my interest in it. So all I have left from travel experience and personal acquaintance must come out of the pages of memory, illustrated now and then with such letters as the letter writers would be will- ing to have read. In giving one of these now, I am wondering what it was I talked about in Santa Rosa, California, that night. I must confess I do not recall the subject or the manner of its presentation and would give a good deal to be able to duplicate both if the impressions made upon my kindly critic were indeed merited. I reached Santa Rosa early in the forenoon, and 174 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS, LIFE STORY was free until the evening. The only man I had ever heard of who lived in Santa Rosa was Luther Burbank. I had been eating some of his thin-shelled English walnuts on the train coming up from San Francisco and hoped I might be able to see him and tell him what I thought of them. So I walked over to his place, which was right on the edge of the town, and asked a man who was working in the corner spineless-cactus garden if Mr. Burbank was at home. He said I would find him over in a field, point- ing in the direction of it. I walked down through several interesting garden spots and finally came upon Mr. Burbank who was down on his knees doing something with the soil into which he had plunged his hands, and then letting the fine dust of it trickle through his fingers. He wore an old and ragged pair of dirty white overalls, and a dirtier brown shirt, while his head was partly covered with a very disreputable straw hat that looked as if a horse had bitten a mouthful out of the front side, and then tried to put it back. I introduced myself and told him what I thought of his walnuts, and his eye gleamed through the honest coating of dirt that ornamented his eye- brows, and he got up and insisted on taking me into the house, when I would much have preferred to walk over the grounds. Before going in, he did point out a walnut tree that he had made to grow THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 175 some marvelous size in a miraculous period of time, but aside from that he did not talk of his own methods, and I had only a general conversation with him. He asked some questions about Kansas and said it was indebted for some of its best citizens to his own native state of Massachusetts, which 1s true. He asked about the lecture of the evening which was to be given in a church, and volunteered the information that he seldom went to hear lec- tures, although I had not said anything about it, except to answer his questions. In the evening when I was about half through with my lecture I noticed Mr. Burbank sitting near the back of the house. I had not expected to see him at all, and as he did not look as he did when I first met him, I did not recognize him until I had been speaking for some time. I did not see him after the lecture, and never expected to have more than the memory of that little visit in his old square brick house, but several weeks later after getting home from a tour of the Pacific coast I received a letter and his photograph, one taken with smooth face and a white tie and dressed-up clothes. I ven- ture to quote the letter entire, and hope I may be forgiven for letting someone else besides the Lecture Bureau agent say it: “Tt was a great pleasure to meet you in my home and to hear your great talk in the evening, and to 176 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY know that you are one of those who has courage to speak as he believes on all subjects without excep- tion. Such men are needed. Your quiet straight- forward words could be heard distinctly by everyone in the building. I have often wondered why one needed to bellow, paw the earth, pierce the air with shrieks, and raise the Devil in order to praise the Lord. Always faithfully yours, Luther Burbank.” That last sentence has been ever since worth more to me than a course in declamation by a professional spellbinder. Once during this travel period I yielded in a moment of weakness to the Chautauqua man, and went on a circuit that included southern Indiana, a part of Illinois, and Iowa. I can frankly say it was an experience I do not care to duplicate. It happened to be the hottest summer for several years. If there is any hotter place than a Chautau- qua tent in southern Indiana at corn-growing time I have never been introduced to it by my worst enemy. And if there is any more forlorn thing than a hotel in some of the small Chautauqua towns of the Middle West where the accommodations are the only things that are beyond mention I have never met it, not even in camping out with the flea-infested Sioux Indians up on the Niobrara. But the one pleasant memory of that misguided ambition of mine to make a Chautauqua circuit was STEWART SHELDON FATHER AND SON. IQI5. SARAH WARD SHELDON THE MOTHER OF CHARLES M. SHELDON. THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 177 the meeting with William Jennings Bryan. A meet- ing with Mr. Bryan was interesting at any time, but to be with him on a Chautauqua platform and watch him in action was more than interesting, it was fas- cinating. ‘The first thing he did down there in In- diana was to tell the janitor or the boy or whoever happened to be near to get him a pitcher of ice water with some ice in it. Then he would pour a quart of it over his wrists which were unadorned with cuffs, and call for another pitcher. This he directed to be placed on the table. After getting into action I have seen him drink nearly a pitcher of ice water in between the applauses which were frequent and fervid. It was a marvel to me to see a thing that would have put me on an operating table only get up more steam in Mr. Bryan. His voice grew more mellow and more clear with every gulp of ice water, as his collar disappeared and his hair seemed to leak the drops that the pitcher pro- vided. In addition to all this inspiring and per- spiring spectacle he was the most genial fellow lecturer, with a fund of humor and anecdote that never seemed to care about concealing anything that belonged to American politics. He told me the second time I met him that his break with Mr. Wilson when he went out of his cabinet was abso- lutely unavoidable if he, Mr. Bryan, was to retain his self-respect and continue to be a free voice in 178 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY policies which were to him the very breath of life itself. | Since that Chautauqua experience I have had many meetings with Mr. Bryan, notably at Wash- ington during the Limitation of Arms Conference where I was indebted to him for many courtesies. I do not agree with him on some matters of theology and world history, but that does not have anything to do with my love for him and respect for him. One does not have to agree with a man’s theology to love his religion. It is some distance from southern Indiana to Fifth Avenue, New York, and from Mr. Bryan (theo- logically) to Harry Emerson Fosdick, the so-called heretic of the Baptist-Presbyterian pulpit. As my travel circle went around I finally found it inter- secting Dr. Fosdick’s circle and it meant meeting a most interesting and personally attractive man. It is very significant to note that personality is a thing that seems to be separated in many ways from a man’s creeds and beliefs. I have noted many times that persons one meets are not at all like the reports of them made by people who have never seen them. I have had several letters from people severely condemning Dr. Fosdick. One of them said he was the most dangerous man in New York and America. I enjoyed that letter so much that I sent it to Dr. Fosdick, because he has a good fund of humor, and I felt sure it would cheer him up on a blue Monday. THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 179 I am sure it did, for the following Sunday I had the pleasure of hearing him preach in the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue, and I have never heard a more impressive Gospel ser- mon in my life than I heard that day. This being a very rambling and discursive chapter as is fitting for a travel chapter I want to share with you the pleasure of meeting some of the people of Great Britain. Three different times the church in Topeka gave me leave of absence to engage in Prohibition campaigns in England. During these campaigns the most interesting part of them to me was the personal friendship that the campaigns fur- nished. The most picturesque figure in any British pulpit for many generations was Dr. Joseph Parker of the Temple on High Holborn. He was in every sense of the word, a “‘character.’”’ He was a remarkable preacher, most astonishing writer and exceedingly and distinctly himself. I happened to be in his congregation one Sunday when I had no speaking engagements. It was Com- munion Sunday. Dr. Parker sat down on the small platform below the pulpit and after the officers had begun to pass the bread, he asked any visitors who might be present to send up their cards to him. Several American tourists were present and as [ noted them giving their cards to the ushers, [ handed in mine, not knowing what use the preacher 180 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY would make of them, as the custom was one I had never seen before at a Communion service. Dr. Parker sat there reading out names of visitors as the ushers brought them up, in a running com- mentary as it were, to introduce them to the con- gregation. He read my card out loud, and said in his most impressive pulpit manner, ‘“‘I would like to see Dr. Sheldon in my study at the close of this service.” I felt somewhat like a small boy who has been asked by the teacher to remain after school for a few minutes, but I went into the study, and my heart warmed to the most genial and friendly wel- come that any man ever had. If the English people have a reputation for being stiff and cold and un- gracious they certainly did not get it from Dr. Parker. He invited me out to his home at Hamp- stead Heath the next day and I went and had a most interesting afternoon. He showed me the proofs of his new People’s Bible, which contained his pulpit comments on his own Bible Readings, one of which I remember was nothing more than this: ‘And Moses fell on his face and worshipped.” The comment on this verse was, “Under the circum- stances, there was nothing else that Moses could do!” I met Dr. Charles F. Aked in his famous Pem- broke Chapel Church in Liverpool, during the Boer war. Dr. Aked bravely and from the pulpit re- peatedly attacked the government for this war, and THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 181 was as bitterly hated by the Jingoes for his attitude as he was admired by the peace party. One Sun- day after he had preached tremendously against the wickedness of the war, the hoodlums attacked him as he was leaving the church, and he barely escaped serious physical injury. Mrs. Sheldon and I were his guests for several weeks after that and the scars were still visible on his furniture where the rocks thrown through his front windows by the hood- lums had left their mark. The Sunday following this personal attack Dr. Aked preached his most vigorous sermon against the war. The one Sunday I was privileged to be in his pulpit, at the evening service before I spoke, he said to me when time came for the announcement of a hymn, “I am going to give out Kipling’s Recessional. ‘The house is full of Jingoes, and they hate this hymn. Watch them sing it.” I watched them, and I can truly say that I have never seen a grimmer sight than several hundred Militaristic Britishers, red faced and glum, fiercely grasping their hymn books and looking straight forward with tight shut lips as the rest of the congregation who sympathized with Dr. Aked sang the whole of Kipling’s Recessional, no stanzas being omitted. The Recessional invokes the Deity, “Lest we forget,’ and for one I shall never forget that scene in Pembroke Chapel, and neither will the Jingoes who were present. At the time of the World’s Christian Endeavor 182 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Convention in London, President Clark and myself received a cablegram from Chicago asking if he would accept the nomination for the Presidential candidate of the Christian Socialist party that had been organized there if I would be his running mate! Dr. Clark and I had a hasty caucus together and cabled over at a cost to us both, evenly divided, of eight shillings and ten pence, the one word, “No!” asking the telegraph man to spell it with a capital N. I think it was that curious bit of American poli- tics that attracted Mr. William T. Stead’s attention to us, for a few days later, after the announcement of our refusal to run for president and vice-president had been published in the London papers, Mr. Stead invited us with a number of other American visitors to take an excursion at his expense up the _ Thames as far as Henley, and stop at Windsor on the way. We went up the river on a launch, and had an elaborate banquet at Windsor in the Town Hall, and then drove through Windsor Park. The Union Jack was flying from the tower of Windsor Castle showing that the Queen was in residence, and as we neared the Castle entrance Stead said to Dr. Clark and me in the casual way in which he spoke of crowned heads, “‘Would you like to see the Old Lady?” meaning, without any disrespect, Queen Victoria. I do not remember what Dr. Clark said, but I THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 183 managed to make some remark about not having any court dress on in which to appear before royalty. But Stead went up to the palace entrance, was ad- mitted, and after some little time came back looking somewhat crestfallen, and said that the “Old Lady” was not well, and could not receive any visitors, although she sent her greetings to the American vis- itors. And that is as near as I ever came to meeting a crowned head face to face, except the one time when Mrs. Sheldon and I had an audience with Queen Liliuokalani in Honolulu after she had been requested to abdicate. But it was an astonishing thing to me then and is always to think that Stead was the one man almost in all Europe who seemed to have a free entrance to royal abodes and the privilege of gaining personal interviews with the most exclusive royal potentates, including the most seclusive court of Austria and that of St. Peters- burg. And he was not a man of title, only a journal- ist and man of letters, a free lance if there ever was one, and on that day when he wanted to know if we would like to see Queen Victoria he had been out of Holloway prison only a few weeks for telling the truth about the awful immoral condition of her Majesty’s capital city. Going on up to Henley that afternoon Stead dis- coursed on his pet subject of telepathy and told us that he talked daily with his sister who at the time was living in Paris. He also said that when he died 184 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY he would find some way to communicate with his friends here. He went down on the Titanic April I5, 1912, and if any message has ever come from him to any living being on earth I have never heard of it. Before we parted that memorable day he presented each one of us with an autographed photo- graph of himself, and his own printed motto, ‘“* For the union of all who love, In the service of all who suffer.” And again while it is possible to enumerate a long list of possible places of departure from acceptance of William T. Stead’s creed and practice, I shall always put his picture on the wall of my travel room as that of a gallant gentleman whose heart beat high and true for every form of release from in- justice and who scorned cowardice and ease of living when human wrongs waited to be redressed. On the second of my prohibition campaigns to Great Britain I had the pleasure of meeting Lord Kinnaird who was one of the few members of the House of Lords who was an ardent national pro- hibitionist. “The evening we were his guests at St. James Square, London, he had just come from a session of the Lords where they had been debating the measure which had passed the House of Com- mons granting the British householder the great privilege of local veto, that is, of saying at the ballot box whether he would have a saloon in his town or THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 185 not. Up to the present time the English people have not had what we have always had, the right to vote the public house out of existence. It would take an act of Parliament to give them that right. Lord Kinnaird pleaded for this right with all his consecrated Scottish convictions, but a few days afterwards the House of Lords kicked the bill out with a kick that had behind it the indignant refusal of more than a score of Brewers who hold seats in the noble House of Lords of the great British Em- pire. But Lord Kinnaird’s soul was clean of the thing, and he made me feel as I kneeled in F. B. Meyers’ church one evening and heard Kinnaird pray for the power of Christ to baptize his country with another Pentecost, that there was a leaven in the lump that some day would mean a prohibition English speaking race around the world. Lady Somerset was another of the noble repre- sentatives of the best among the rich and titled of Great Britain. I was deeply impressed with her wonderful sincerity and admired greatly her power on the platform, and her simple manner of living. Perhaps one of the most enjoyable experiences of one of the journeys to England during the travel period was the meeting with Dean Farrar at Can- terbury. Mrs. Sheldon and I spent several days in the Deanery, including a memorable Sunday. The old structure was so full of winding stair cases and crooked passages that a servant had to pilot us to 186 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY our room and show us how to get out again to find the dining and reception rooms down stairs. The Dean had invited considerable company to meet us, and at the table he and the others invited facts about the working of prohibition in the States. Dean Farrar was an ardent temperance man and during his incumbency at St. Margaret’s, London, as Arch- deacon, he incurred the enmity of the social leaders among the brewers in his congregation on account of his outspoken sermons and addresses. During the Sunday after he had preached in the Cathedral in the morning he gently said that the rules of his church forbade his inviting me to preach in Canter- bury Cathedral, as he would wish it did not, but he had invited the Cathedral Choir boys to come into the old Roman walled garden of the Deanery in the afternoon and invited me to speak to them there, which I did, to my own great delight as I faced their fair faces in that surrounding seated on the English lawn that was like heaviest velvet, with the old red brick wall surrounding the pear trees that trained over it more like vines than trees, and the pervading scent of roses everywhere. At night on that same Sunday just as the Cathedral clock was booming the midnight hour, the old watchman making his rounds with his lantern could be heard calling out the sing- song sentence, ‘‘Twelve o'clock, and all’s well!” It took us back at least as far as Shakespeare, and a part of it to Julius Cesar, and while I do not THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 187 have any too much reverence or use for a dead past, which was not any better than it ought to be, and not as good as the present which is not as good as it might be, the surroundings of the Deanery at Canterbury had a charm that newness cannot have. It is not every Sunday in the year that a Kansas preacher can preach to a group of Cathedral choir boys in a garden that has a wall built by men some of whom must have seen the Roman legions march- ing down to take their triremes to make passage across the channel for imperial Rome. During the War of 1914 and 1918 I was in- vited by the National Prohibition Party of Great Britain to join speakers from Canada and other countries and hold prohibition meetings all over Great Britain. It seemed then and does now rather strange that a campaign of that nature was called during the carrying on of the war. Later in the conflict, the British government forbade such cam- paigns. But the need of something of the sort has never been questioned by those who understood the conditions that faced our boys as they landed and went up to London preparatory to going over to France. I do not dare to tell all I saw of the effects of drink on our own boys while they were en route through England for the front, but what I did see convinced me that the campaign was not wasted, and the leaders in it have never apologized for it or minimized its influence. 188 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY The church again granted me the leave of absence and I went in the winter of 1917 and 1918. The leader in the National Prohibition movement for Great Britain was Sir George Hunter the great ship builder of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He was the designer and builder of the Mauretania and Lusitania, the latter being built on the Clyde and the former at Newcastle-on-T'yne. I was his guest for two weeks and of all my English friends I think of him with the greatest respect and affection. He was a mem- ber of the church of England and a most ardent prohibitionist. At several of our meetings I have heard him castigate the clergy of the State Church for their financial connections with the breweries, and at the great meeting in Bristol near the close of our campaign he turned to face nearly a thousand clergymen of the state church and gave them the most thorough tongue lashing for their failure to help the cause of temperance that I have ever heard even from temperance agitators like Francis Mur- phy and John B. Gough. Sir George started the financing of the campaign by giving outright two thousand pounds nearly all of which was spent in advertising the meetings. They were put on the map and the executive work was carried on by a young Canadian by the name of Newton Wylie of Toronto, who was incapacitated for military service by an accident to his spine which made him a cripple. He raised over 10,000 pounds THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 189 to meet all expenses, and closed the account without any debt. We went into 75 towns in two months and spoke to immense audiences. During the two months in London and Leeds and Liverpool and Manchester I saw American and Canadian and Aus- tralian boys drunk on the streets, and at Plymouth the crews of three of our battle ships lay drunk in the streets for nearly a week, and the authorities including the ministers of the churches made public protests to the liquor men to stop debauching the soldiers and sailors of the Allies. It did very little good, as the brewers were on top during the war, but the sight of the boys was enough to break the heart, and did break the heart of hundreds and even thousands in Canada. ‘The records given to the House of Commons show that over 10,000 Can- adian soldiers and sailors were invalided home from Cairo, Egypt, on account of drink and venereal disease, and the number incapacitated in Great Britain for the same reasons was up into the thou- sands. In the public houses all over England and Scotland were printed notices in the windows, ‘‘Men in uniform served here to whisky and brandy. Others to beer only.” I was in Liverpool on New Year’s eve 1918 just before the Leviathan came in with her first consignment of our boys and the pub- lic houses were running over with drunken and drinking soldiers. As fast as the drunken were unable to buy any more they were pulled out of the 199 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY rooms in order to permit the entrance of those yell- ing outside to get in. On my departure for home in January I carried with me a letter from Sir George Hunter addressed to President Wilson and Cabinet members of the United States asking and pleading for some action to be taken to protect the American soldiers from drink while passing through Great Britain for France. Lloyd George was quoted in his famous speech made at the beginning of the war, “We face three enemies, Germany, Austria and Drink, and the greatest of these is Drink.” Sir George urged me by pen and voice to see if something could not be done at Washington. On landing at New York the middle of January I went at once to Washington and asked to see first of all Herbert Hoover. The wheat we had been sending over, and the barley for English consump- tion were being converted into beer, instead of bread. I found Mr. Hoover at the end of a day of dis- traction. It was already getting dark in the long wooden building where he had his office. As I had come down by the White House I bought a small bunch of sweet peas from a little flower shop and when Mr. Hoover asked me to come in and tell him what my coming was about I first gave him the flowers and as he took them he said, “I get mostly bricks. ‘This looks to me like a pleasant change.” I told him as concisely as I could what I had seen THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 191 and asked him, after I had delivered Sir George’s message, what could be done for our boys to protect them. For reply he showed me a cable demanding a heavier shipment of grain to the forces in Great Britain. And then he expressed himself in vigorous English over a policy that permitted the turning of good food into bad drink. And I told him of a case that I had personally seen in Northumberland while I was there of a prohibition farmer who had been arrested for feeding his barley to his pigs instead of selling it to the brewers. He said the army needed pork more than beer. But he was tried by a court of magistrates and made to pay a fine of twenty- five pounds for breaking an English law that com- pelled every British farmer to sell the first grade barley to the brewers and keep out the second grade for bread. Mr. Hoover was a worn out man when I saw him. He was going to take a week end rest, but as we sat there together alone in that war made office I could not help wondering at the way he had borne the burdens of a dozen men, hating war with all his soul, and tormented by a thousand unjust criticisms from men and papers that could not have held down an assistant corporal’s job, and I went away after an assurance that something would be done if it was within possibility. It is a fact that much of our grain to Great Britain was afterwards 192 CHARLES. M. SHELDON: HIS ‘LIFE STORY sent in the form of flour instead of grain. If that change was due to Mr. Hoover’s answer to Sir George’s appeal, it was no more than I would expect from the man who fed starving Europe in its terrible tragedy. I went from Mr. Hoover the next day to Secre- tary Newton Baker. Senator Dillingham of Ver- mont, a near relative of Mrs. Sheldon, helped me to an audience with Mr. Baker. He gave me a silent but close hearing to my story and showed appreciation of the appeal from the maker of the Lusitania but when the matter was broached of ask- ing Great Britain to observe the same rule in the army and navy that we had and asking them to refuse liquor to our men as they refused here under penalty, Mr. Baker said decidedly “‘We cannot inter- fere with the internal policy of Great Britain in a matter of that sort.” I shall always be convinced that we not only were justified in asking Great Britain to protect our boys from drink but that we had a right to demand it, and that Lloyd George would have welcomed it as a just demand. But Mr. Baker did not think so. He dismissed me rather abruptly, but the room was full of people waiting to see him, and the burden of the war was on what looked to me boyish shoulders. But before I went away he advised me to see Mr. Josephus Daniels the Secretary of the Navy and gave me a note to him. THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 193 I went over at once and had an immediate audi- ence with Mr. Daniels. He gave me nearly an hour to tell of what [had seen. At the end of it he expressed himself with much vigor, indeed a disin- terested spectator might have imagined he was say- ing some things about the stupid policy of a govern- ment that deliberately put its own soldiers and sail- ors and those of the Allies out of service in order to keep alive an industry like brewing that did more harm to civilization than any other one thing in it. But when it came to doing anything, that was an- other matter, and the Secretary did not know what could be done. I did not try to see Mr. Wilson, although Sir George Hunter had begged me to see the Head of the nation. I dared not intrude on him at such a time, and went home after seeing my own senators and congressmen, but with the feeling that no one could or would do anything in the matter. The first thing I did after the first greetings at home was to put down in writing some of the facts I had accumulated from my travel, and then I sent a summary of it to Secretary Daniels, and asked him if it would be in order to publish them. He replied at once, “I hope that your article will have the widest publication. I shall look out for it.” I sent the article to Hamilton Holt of the New York In- dependent. He wrote that the publishing of the facts about the British treatment of our boys might 194 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY jeopardize the invitation he had just had from the British authorities to visit the battle front to obtain certain facts about the carrying on of affairs, but he would publish the article and take the consequences. Which he did, and his invitation was not withdrawn, and he did valuable service in the matter that after- wards took him over. | I cannot help wondering how long it will take the English speaking world to treat the whole liquor business as crime against itself, it would be a rash judgment that would dare prophesy the end of the liquor trade within the next generation. Great Britain is its strongest fort. But forts that have been called impregnable have capitulated. Some- times they have been captured on account of traitors within the walls. The hope of the world lies in that perhaps. The thing is so bad that its very badness will in the long run destroy it. This is such a rambling chapter already that it would spoil it to try to make it logical and con- nected. It all covers a period that was a distinct part of my ministry and at the heart of all of the experiences and personal adventure, the church was there, the main thing as the years passed on. Com- ing back from the third absence abroad I had taken up my regular pulpit and parish program again when one day I was asked by Governor Ed Hoch to come down to the State House to see him on what he said was a matter of importance. I soon found that THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 195 what he wanted was my acceptance of the position of Superintendent of the Hutchinson Reformatory, a state institution that received young men who were convicted for a felony the first time. It had at the time some 700 inmates. The Governor urged my acceptance and seemed to think it was my duty to undertake the task of administering the affairs of the Reformatory. But the thought of it compared with the work of the ministry in a church simply confirmed my choice of the ministry, and I knew I was acting wisely when I declined to leave the church. The same feeling was present with me when the Presbyterian church at Stratford, just out of London, asked me to come over there. The de- cision to remain in the Topeka parish was deter- mined by the conviction that very few transfers of that character have ever been happy or successful. One had better stay in an environment to which he is accustomed and with people who are familiar with his peculiarities than attempt what would be in reality more of an experiment than a program. The period of writing which I have said seemed to divide with the church building and the travel periods the time of my Kansas ministry was in reality distributed over the thirty-five years of church life. I found that sermonic preparation reached a limited number of hearers, and the printed page many more. I would advise every minister to write a great deal for the mental change and 196 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY relief from one form of thought expression. Many young ministers in small towns could with great advantage to themselves and the broadening of their influence make friends with the local newspaper man, and through the columns of his county or home paper reach a large audience. A good example of this is the Rev. Harlow S. Mills of the village of Benzonia, Michigan. For many years he has writ- ten a column for the local paper and his simple message which contains happy philosophy and sound advice is read every week by every subscriber in the county. I have known some ministers in small towns to complain that their parishes were so limited on account of other denominations or on account of the very smallness of the place itself. But they have never tried to enlarge their scope through the printed page. Every minister ought to write out in full at least one sermon a month, and practice writing often for his own accuracy of statement. I found also a real mental relief to turn from the sermonic and homiletic style of sermon preparation to the story form. I also think it lies within the reach of any man whose business in life is expressing thought in speech to learn to do the same thing for | print, and thus enlarge his parish and remove the feeling of limitation of one’s audience as confined to the numbers that he faces from the pulpit. But there is another reason for the use of writing apart from the relief from the didactic or sermonic THE TOPEKA MINISTRY 197 style, and that is the enlarged range of subjects that can be treated in a story form as compared with the sermon form. It is true that the love chapter of life can be told in a sermon and preached from a pulpit, but not with the freedom possible in a story, or by the use of fiction to illustrate the theme. The sermon, in the nature of its composition is restricted to the conduct of the human in his relation to God and his neighbor. The evolution of this theme may take the preacher very far afield, but it is necessarily limited in the use of incident and adventure. The story form allows of more latitude and the listener expects more detail than would be allowed to a sermon without the criticism that the matter is being “lugged” in to fit the text. Whether I am right in this philosophy of the story for teaching certain vital things like love and the social side of life, it has at any rate been a great relief to my mental needs to turn from the sermon to the story form of teaching. I wrote my first book, “Richard Bruce” in 1891 in order to say some things I wanted my young peo- ple to learn, as I found I could not make the same appeal by preaching with a sermon and a text. The other books followed for the same reason and I enjoyed that part of the Sunday evenings more than my audiences did. The writing and the reading be- came a part of my church life for more than twenty- five years, and some thirty stories grew up within 198 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY that time. The work of the Every-day Bible was the result of spare evenings continuing for a space of over twenty years, and the later books have been a part of my regular work on the Christian Herald. Taken in all, my writing has in a certain sense been diversion as well as serious work. ‘The diversion has rested my mental labor, and I hope it has also been at times the vehicle of some needed teaching along the way of life which is sometimes a way of flowers beside the dusty road over which we all travel, permitted by Him who leads the way to stop and rest awhile by the wayside which has been worn by the tread of His feet because He has led so many over the path which leads to everlasting life. CHAPTER EIGHT THE TRAVEL CHAPTER Professional globe trotters can skip this chapter, as it will probably be uninteresting to them. Com- pared with their experiences mine have been tame and uneventful. I have had few adventures and never scaled a mountain or crawled out of a train wreck. But my travel time has been interesting in- stead of exciting and eventful enough to relieve the traveler from stupid weariness. So I am going to say something about it because it is a part of my life that is bound up with people and events that are important enough to be recorded in this history. My travels on this globe up to date have included the United States, into every one of which I have gone on nearly every railroad system of the country, and into every capital city of every state; Great Britain, four times, by which I mean England, Ire- land, Scotland, Wales, The Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, the Channel Islands, Guernsey and Jersey; France, as far as Paris and the Tuileries; Norway, including the Sogne Fiord, the Sogne Hardanger, and the Balholm district; Australia; New Zealand; 199 200 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Hawaii; Samoa including our own little Island Tutuila; and Canada. The first time I went to Great Britain I lived in a garret of a house on Norfolk street off the Strand. I rode all over London on the horse busses, which have been succeeded by the electric trams. I walked all over the city also, much of the walking at night through the East end. I feel better acquainted with London than with most cities in this country. Sun- days I went to church services all day, beginning with the first service in St. Pauls or Westminster Abbey, and hearing such men as Jackson Wray of Totten- ham Court Road, Spurgeon of the famous Taber- nacle, Joseph Parker of the Temple, Canon Liddon of St. Pauls and F. B. Meyer of Christ Church across the Thames. During the other trips to Great Britain I was speaking every day in a new town and could not enjoy the experience apart from the program, but the beauties of the landscape in all parts of the old country appealed to me constantly, and the meeting with persons of whom I had read and heard was a constant delight that not even the strain of meetings and public introductions by for- midable committees could quite impair. Let me tell you of one notable meeting with one of Great Britain’s great souls, as a typical event in the travel over the old country, one out of very many that I hope to enjoy in that other land where travel will be without the bother and anxiety of THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 201 luggage or expense or previous careful laying out of itinerary. On my second visit to England, Canon Farrar who had made such a wonderful impression on London as the preacher at St. Margaret’s and on the world as an author, had been made Dean of Canterbury Cathedral. Mrs. Sheldon and myself were honored with an invitation to spend a week end with the Dean and Mrs. Farrar at the Deanery. We arrived just in time for dinner at seven, and as we drove through the gates of the old Roman wall built before the birth of Christ, surrounding the Deanery and the famous King’s Boys School we felt as if we had left the noisy world outside and had entered sacred ground. The old Deanery is several hundred years old, a rambling building gray with years, with long wind- ing hallways leadings to sleeping rooms, a few steps up to one room to one floor or down to an- other, making it a genuine puzzle to the visitor to find his own sleeping apartment. Indeed we had to have a guide in the form of one of the many servants in the Deanery to show us the way and the ‘aoe sight the Dean himself directed us when it was time to retire or we could not have found the place. We were met at the door of the Deanery, on our arrival by the Dean, clad in the costume of his ecclesiastical rank, knee breeches, silk stockings, silk vestment, gold buckles on his gaiters, and black 202 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY apron. Mrs. Farrar was also very quaint in a full silk skirt, with beautiful white lace at the neck. There were several other guests at dinner, including the Bishop of South America, and a number of curates. The dining room, or rather Banqueting Hall was imposing with high paneling of oak grown dark with age, and the walls were covered with wonderful paintings of past bishops and church notables framed in heavy gilt. At one end of this dining hall was a reading stand for the Bible, and at break- fast the next morning the Dean stood before it while all the servants came in to listen to morning prayers, the guests and all the company kneeling at their chairs while the prayers were said. Dean Farrar himself was a teetotaller, and a staunch advocate of prohibition, so when we found several kinds of wine served at the meals to his guests we realized that the drinking habits of old England are so long established that even a man who had made a record in England for the abolish- ing of drink from his own country could not be so inhospitable in his own home as to withhold it from his guests at his own table. Perhaps he did more than any other clergyman of the Estab- lished Church while he was in London to call atten- tion to the curse of drink and the stories he told at his table while the guests were drinking, of his visits to the homes of London drunkards and the THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 203 effect of the parents’ drunkenness on the children would have turned a heart of stone, but seemed to have little effect on some of the clerical guests who had their glasses filled more than once by the butler and his assistants. I think the only persons at the table during our stay at the Deanery who did not drink claret and wine were the Dean and Mrs. Farrar and Mrs. Sheldon and myself. I have mentioned this visit to Canterbury else- where in this story, but these items are additional, and remind me of similar visits with the English people during my third campaign for prohibition under the auspices of the United Kingdom Alliance, an organization which has held countless meetings all over Great Britain, in the interest of prohibition and local option, with results that are hardly meas- urable if we are to take into account the effect the campaigns have had on the power of the Brewer and Distiller, and the lessening of drink among the peo- ple generally. For at this writing ten years after the Great War, the increase in drunkenness among the women in Great Britain is almost double what it was three years ago. Among the devoted champions of temperance that I met on my third visit were Lady Henry Somerset, and Lord Kinnaird. Both of these were passion- ately in earnest for a sober England, and yet the evening I was Lord Kinnaird’s guest at his beauti- ful house in St. James’ Square, London, he had just 204 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY come home from a session of the House of Lords where the vote against the Bill just passed by the House of Commons to permit local option was over- whelming, in other words, the permission to let the people of a great empire say whether they would have a saloon in their town was denied them, be- cause the old House of Lords to which a man like Lord Kinnaird belonged was composed in large part by men who owned breweries and distilleries, and their property could not be endangered no matter how much destruction the liquor business created among the bodies and souls of his Majesty’s sub- jects. Property, in the eyes of the English Brewer and Distiller has always been far more precious than persons. One of the most interesting occasions that I find myself recording of my travels in London was the invitation to meet the group of members of the English House of Commons who were fighting for the Local Option Bill, at a luncheon held at the famous Holborn Restaurant. I walked from my hotel to the restaurant, and found I was a little ahead of the time. One of the restaurant officials ushered me into the waiting room and I was just about to cross over to the place where coats and hats were hung up when I nearly collided with a very tall and distinguished looking gentle- man who came unexpectedly out of a side door. He looked at me very sharply as if to say, “And who THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 205 are you?” inasmuch as the High Holborn was a very exclusive restaurant where strangers were looked at with care. His look was so near like a question that seeing I was the guest of the evening on the occasion, I said without meaning to be in any way pompous or egotistical, simply explanatory to set the gentleman at his ease and let him know I was not an intruder, “I’m Mr. Sheldon.” “Oh! Are you?” he said, still staring, ““And who am Lf. I was so overcome by the question that to this day I do not really know what I ought to have said in reply, if indeed any reply was called for. Of course I might have said any number of things, in addition to one or two that I kept to myself. I might have said, “I haven’t the least idea. Who ARE you?” Or I might have said, “Ah! The Prince of Wales! Happy to meet you! Shake!” After the members of the House were seated at the luncheon table, the Chairman, who was the Hon- orable Leif Jones, a Parliament member and Presi- dent of the United Kingdom Alliance, broke a Brit- ish rule by introducing me to the gentleman on my right by saying, ““Mr. Sheldon, the gentleman on your right is Lord Thorndyke.” I turned to look at the gentleman on my right and it was the same elegantly dressed person I had met with a bang in the waiting room. Before the luncheon was over I was on speaking terms with him, and as he was 206 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY one of a few prohibition members of the House of Lords and really interested in conditions in America, and especially in Kansas, I found he was an intelli- gent and shrewd questioner and when he spoke dur- ing the after dinner program he went several blocks out of his way to utter a very delicately worded compliment to the way prohibition was enforced in the guest’s state of Kansas. In thinking it over afterwards I came to the conclusion that perhaps that was the noble Lord’s way of expressing his apology for the asking me who HE was. I met Lord Thorndyke once or twice after that meeting in Holborn, and inasmuch as he asked me out to his home for the week end I have inferred that he did not take any umbrage from the incident in the wait- ing room where I failed to answer the interesting query he shot at me. | It was a few days after the luncheon at the Hol- born Restaurant that I was invited by Archdeacon Sinclair of St. Pauls to a luncheon in the Arch- deacon’s residence opposite the Cathedral. ‘There were several clergymen present, and after the lunch- eon, at which nearly every one present had imbibed considerable claret, the host brought out a center- piece of the famous cathedral made of solid silver with pockets on each of the four sides of the church for holding cigarettes. We sat about the table talking on various subjects including prohibition in- asmuch as the Archdeacon and his clergy knew my THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 207 errand in Great Britain was to create sentiment for the closing of the public houses and the ultimate creation of actual prohibition for the entire Empire. The guests including the Archdeacon asked me many questions about the prohibition conditions in America which I answered to the best of my ability. While we were talking the servants brought in claret again and every one of the ecclesiastical group ex- cept myself partook. Two days after that meeting I read in the London Times an account of an im- portant meeting in one of the halls of London where Archdeacon Sinclair had addressed two hundred barmaids who had called a meeting to protest against the local option bill then pending in the House of Commons, as if it passed it would take away their means of livelihood. ‘The Archdeacon in an earnest address which the barmaids loudly. cheered pledged his influence to oppose the local op- tion bill and support the breweries and distilleries. I learned afterwards what I did not know at the luncheon, that the Archdeacon was a heavy stock- holder in Brewer’s Scrip and that the Dean of St. Pauls has been for more than seven hundred years the custodian of the cathedral’s own brewery which furnished a large revenue for the church income. Surely it is a far cry from Prohibition Kansas to the ecclesiastical state of Great Britain. One of the most interesting and unusual sights Mrs. Sheldon and I have put down in our experience 208 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY was the sight of a group of feeble minded ladies at Ryde, the Isle of Wight. I was the guest of the lady who was appointed by the government at a large income to superintend the establishment which houses in an elegant building, a group of old ladies who are the hereditary result of close intermarriage of nobility. These old ladies were dressed in the richest and most elegant style. ‘The table where they appeared with our hostess and ourselves was of the most choice in its menu and servant-served appointments. But the long list of inmates, if that is the word to use, sat there during the meal time almost without a word spoken. The smiles on their faces were vacant and their minds were those of little children. I think the memory of that table surrounded with the human illustration of human imbecility in its worship of the false thing called nobility and rank sent me on my way with a con- tempt for the thing called “royalty” that grows stronger with the years. The visit to Guernsey was specially exciting to me because of an unusual opportunity to see Victor Hugo’s famous house Hauteville at St. Peter Port. Picture an old house on a steep and narrow street hardly wider than a lane. The interior filled with old furniture and pictures and pieces of curious works of Victor Hugo’s own handicraft in the mat- ter of glazed salt cellars and other pottery. Also in the down stairs rooms darkly wainscoted etchings THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 209 and paintings the work also of the poet. Upstairs one enters a small chamber which at once makes one think of a conservatory, so completely surrounded is it with glass. And the view through the sides of this small room is astonishing, overlooking the red housetops of St. Peter Port, across the Channel to the Island of Sark, the scene of the struggle with the devil fish in the ‘“Toilers of the Sea.”’ But over in the farther corner of this room is the object that claims first attention, for on that corner table fas- tened into the wall Victor Hugo stood up to write ‘Les Miserables,” and “‘Toilers of the Sea.’”’ When he was in need of rest from his writing, he walked into the next room, not more than ten by twelve in size, and lay down on a cot which was not over a foot from the floor. It seemed amazing to me that any human being could write imaginative stories in a room that by its very situation and character provoked the gaze out Over a panorama scarcely equalled any where in Europe for beauty and power. In times of storm, when Sark was shrouded in mist and St. Peter Port was swept with the Channel gales it does not seem possible that a writer of fiction could so command his attention that he could stand by the hour as Hugo did at that little corner and continue to write, oblivious of the magnificent and wondrous scenes that beat as it were right up against that glass sur- rounded little room at the top of Hauteville House. 210 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Norway is the only country I ever visited where I did not have to hold some sort of a meeting, and address some sort of an audience. I am willing to confess that it was a great relief, after filling speak- ing engagements in Great Britain that had compelled railroad travel for two months, crossing England six times from east to west and four times north and south, and being in a different town and a dif- ferent hotel bed every night for fifty-seven consecu- tive days. Mrs. Sheldon and I traveled alone, avoiding the tourist parties and personally conducted groups, and had no difficulty in finding our way around, even into byways and seldom traveled paths into quaint nooks and corners of that most wonder- fully entrancing fiord and cascade country. There was never a hamlet or small village into which we entered that did not have some man or woman who could talk English and many of the young men had been to London and nearly all of the young people were studying the English language during the long winters when they were shut out from all the world on their little farms. Our memory of Norway is an abiding memory of fascinating mountain rides like the one down the Stalheim valley, and the aston- ishing scenery around Eide and Odde, and the Bal- holm district. It was a place to rest the weary mind and let God do the talking. My travel in France was limited to Paris and its environs. It was the time of the Paris Exposition, THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 211 and the city was filled with visitors from all over the world. It was the hottest summer that Paris had ever known. I remember going up to the top of the Eiffel Tower one day, but even up there the heat was almost as stifling as it can sometimes be out in Kansas with a hot wind blowing from the south. The one thing that I carried away from Paris as a life long memory was the mile or more of pictures out at Versailles depicting the wars of Napoleon. The ghastly details, disemboweled horses writhing in agony, the torn bodies of men, butchered for a single man’s egotistic ambition, the blazing ruins of cities and the misery of blasted homes,—all struck me as a wonderful argument against the glory of war, and I said to myself as I walked past the tremendous number of such paint- ings that if the artist had happened to be a pacifist who hated war with all his soul he could not possibly have done any thing to create a horror of war bet- ter than by picturing it in the ghastly and monstrous scenes that line the walls of the galleries at Ver- sailles. And yet the people who walked by the paintings the day I was out there, admired their technical skill, and for the most part were thrilled by the memories they evoked of the great Warrior that great Emperor, in other words that Master Butcher of men, Napoleon. As far as my observa- tion goes, up to the present moment, the most ter- rible scenes picturing war, in film or on canvas have 212 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY very little effect on the average mind or imagination to create a horror of war. The very opposite result is found, in an inward glory, at least that seems to be the thought in the minds of the French them- selves as they walk past these horrors, and muse over the “glory” that shone around the “Little Corporal.” It is a strange world where wholesale murder on a grand scale provokes the admiration of the great multitude. And speaking of war takes me in memory down to Australia and New Zealand, for it was while I was in Melbourne that the news flashed over twelve thousand miles, of the shot fired at the Archduke, the noise of which reverberated over the countries under the Southern Cross, and stirred the old Maori peoples of New Zealand, of fighting stock to go and be killed under the Union Jack that their grand- fathers once fought against. My travel to Australia was caused by an invita- tion from the Young Men’s Christian Association embracing both Australia and New Zealand to hold a number of conferences under the Association direc- tion in a large number of towns, and my church gave me leave of absence for four months to carry out that program. On the way from San Francisco it was part of the plan to stop over at Honolulu and conduct a number of meetings there and on other islands of the Hawaiian group. Seven hundred miles out from San Francisco on a THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 213 clear day in the middle of the afternoon in a calm sea, the Sierra, our boat of passage suddenly shook from stem to stern as if it had run onto a coral reef and scraped the entire bottom off. Then there was an ominous twist to the vessel, and all of us who were in the lounge ran out on deck. It was not until two hours later after the boat had been slowed down almost to drifting that the captain and officers discovered that one of the twin screw propellers had snapped off close up to the strut, seven hundred pounds of metal going to the bottom, leaving the propeller beam as smooth at the end as if the screw had been sawed off. The captain sent a wireless message back to the Company in San Francisco asking for orders as to the ship’s course, and within an hour word came to go on to Honolulu on one wheel which we did, seemingly with little serious difficulty. We had no sooner resumed our course than a wireless dropped into my lap coming from Wellington, New Zealand via Honolulu, saying that my Association program had been taken over by the United Kingdom Alli- ance, if it would make no difference to me. It did not, and all my travel in both Australia and New Zealand during the next exciting two months was directed by the Society which corresponded to the Alliance in Great Britain under which I had held two campaigns several years apart. Beginning at Honolulu I held a number of meet- 214 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY ings in Oahu and Maui, and stayed in Honolulv three weeks. The most interesting event to me was a Sunday I spent with Dr. Scudder the pastor of the great Central church. We sat on the porch of his home that Sunday afternoon, looking off through the rainbow mist at Diamond Head, the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The government, that is, ours, was fortifying it to make it a formidable military point. I asked the usual questions of the visitor and of course I asked about the Japanese who were so prominent in Honolulu and everywhere in the islands, concerning their probable attitude towards our possessions in the Pacific. Dr. Scudder was born in Japan, knew personally and held in highest esteem the great statesman of that country and was a close and intensely interested student of Japanese history. I shall never forget the more than scorn with which he expressed his opin- ion of the Jingoes in the United States who would make us believe that the Yellow peril was Japan. “If the Christian people of America would put the same amount of energy and commercial and political effort to create good will and friendship for Japan as the militarists put forth to create suspicion and generate hate and misunderstanding between the two countries, there could never be any possible trouble between the United States and Japan Even as it is, there is not the slightest reason for believing that the Japanese as a people ever would entertain THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 215 the thought of trying to capture the Hawaiian Islands, not even if we had no fortifications like the one at Diamond Head.” I am quoting Dr. Scudder’s words, but I cannot convey to you the reader, his looks as he spoke. There are times when, like Dr. Scudder I cannot help wondering whether when final history is writ- ten by a truthful world historian, it will not be found that judging from events political and economic there have been many occasions when the Japanese have acted the part of Christian gentlemen towards this country in a manner to make us ask whether all the so-called christianity is confined to the coun- tries that claim that distinction. At any rate I[ cannot see that the Yellow peril is any more likely to annex the United States now than it was when Chautauqua ana Young Men’s Christian Associa- tion speakers were hysterically declaiming against Japan forty years ago. By the way there is con- siderable difference between hysterical and historical accuracy, when it comes to dealing with international questions. I made a few speaking engagements in Australia, beginning with Sydney, and then went to Melbourne. The day atter I arrived there the notice was posted up in front of the press buildings of the declaration of war between Great Britain and Germany. I made several speaking trips at points near Melbourne, but the atmosphere of the great tragedy was every- 216 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY where and it was a mental and moral impossibility to carry on the campaign that had been mapped out by my friends in the Alliance. Audiences flocked into the churches and halls and crowded them, but the one question asked at all of them was “What will your country do?” The only answer I could give was President Wilson’s, “we will remain neu- tral until,—”’ and that was as far as any one could get. Returning to Sydney to find a boat to take us back home, we found that the regular passenger service was impossible because all boats under the British flag had been commandeered for transport uses. It was a most embarrassing time for me, ow- ing to the fact that I was short of funds and owing to the breaking up of the Alliance program, I was without money to pay my expenses in hotels for any length of time. While waiting for some sort of transportation home, I received a cable from the friends in the Alliance office headquarters at Well- ington, New Zealand, saying that owing to the breaking out of the war it would be absolutely im- possible to carry out the original program which | had called me away from home, and telling me not to come over there to Wellington. In the course of a long experience with programs and public speaking I think I may safely say that I had never faced anything just like the situation that now confronted me, and for a day or two I was THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 217 honestly perplexed. But the second day after get- ting the cable from Wellington telling me that all plans had been given up, I cabled back that I would come to New Zealand anyway, because I could get a boat from Sydney to Wellington and I might as well be there as in Australia, if I had to take out naturalization papers in case I[ could not get back to my own country, that I would not hold the Alliance to any program, but leave it entirely to their own judgment after I arrived, if it might seem wise to hold any speaking program. In any case I sent word that I understood the situation and would not embarrass the Alliance in any way, on account of the unexpected conditions that had arisen. There were two passenger boats still plying be- tween Sydney and Wellington, and I secured pas- sage on one of them for Mrs. Sheldon, my young son, Merriam, and myself, and we made the crossing of the stormy New Zealand Sea under rather dis- tressing conditions that are simply the common lot of the traveler and need not be mentioned. But before leaving Sydney a rather remarkable event oc- curred that I think may be told at this time without being misunderstood, and hurt no one, not even the military characters who were a part of the little drama that became a part of history for the lad and furnished a text for his father with which to em- bellish a story or illuminate a conviction. The day before our boat was to leave Sydney, one 218 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY of the city magistrates called at the hotel to ask if we would not like to take an automobile ride about the city, and we gladly accepted. Going by the city end of the magnificent Sydney harbor we stopped to * see the first transport leaving with one thousand Australian recruits on their way up to New Guinea where two weeks later they captured the German possessions. The day after this transport sailed out of the Sydney Heads, five large German merchant vessels sailed in through the Heads, and interned themselves. The captains and officers did not know that war had been declared, and it made no differ- ence under international law, for the vessels were the prize of war to the Australian government, and the men and crews of the vessels were interned in Sydney for the war’s duration. Our host drove us out to the famous harbor en- trance, and our boy ran up on the rocky ledge that forms a grim part of the noble Heads that make natural sentinels fronting the sea, leaving a most stately entrance for all ocean going craft, the rocky formation standing up like a work of engineering, — as indeed it is, being the handiwork of the Master Architect. The harbor and its surroundings were just the material for a fine photograph to add to many I had taken of unusual scenes in the Melbourne district, and which I had left in the camera until I could find a good opportunity to have them printed. THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 219 There were two films left, and the boy said he would finish them with the harbor exposures. We sat in the automobile, his mother and I, while he ran up on the ledge, and we little thought as he stood there taking pictures that he would soon be- come the first American arrested for a spy by the great British Empire which had just entered the Great War. He had started to run down the ledge when a man in uniform stepped out from a sentry box that we had not noticed, near the gate to the fortifications, clapped his hand heavily on the boy’s shoulder and declared him under arrest for taking a picture of a fortification during war time. The sentry brought the boy down past the auto- mobile where we were waiting, and said he had orders to convey the boy into the guard house for examination. Without any more words, regardless of the questions of our host and his explanation that we were Americans, the soldier and our boy entered the barbed wire enclosure and disappeared around a corner. As the lad passed us we thought his eye gleamed with a look of some real satisfaction. For that very morning he had been saying at the hotel that he was tired of Australia and nothing exciting was going on and he longed to be back in Kansas. The look on his face now seemed to say, ‘Something happening now.” We waited in that automobile for more than an 220 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY hour for the boy to come back. Our host, one of the best known merchants and a magistrate of Syd- ney twice tried to pass the sentry at the wire en- closure, but was not allowed to enter. ‘The boy’s mother had visions of a firing squad and the boy’s father had visions of precious pictures taken at great trouble still unprinted in the camera. At last the sentry appeared with the boy, minus the camera as I had expected. They were also ac- companied by an officer who gravely took all our names, asked us numerous questions to the answers of which he seemed to take suspicious denial, and said that the camera would be destroyed with every- thing in it. I ventured to explain that the films undeveloped in the camera had been taken before the war was declared and that they were simply pictures taken of persons and of gatherings con- nected with my mission which in itself was entirely peaceful and in the interest of the people’s welfare. The officer listened gravely, but when I was through, he simply said that my son’s offense in taking a pic- ture of the Heads was an exceedingly serious one, and further action against it would have to be taken. He took elaborate notes of the address of the hotel at which we were staying, and when I ventured to say that we had taken passage in one of the regular packets for Wellington the next day, he replied that we might be detained in Australia indefinitely. On the way back to the hotel our host exploded THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 221 several times. He was a loyal Australian Britisher ready to die for his country, but he cursed in pic- turesque language that even an American could un- derstand, the stupidity of the military, and as we drove by one of the stationery or book stalls he pointed to a rack in the window which contained over one hundred post cards photographing the exact picture my son had taken, all to be purchased by any one for one penny a piece. The boy’s mother was so glad to get the boy back unshot that the loss of the camera and the undeveloped films in it did not concern her. But I must confess that the boy’s father, while thinking just as much of his welfare as his mother did, had his own opinions of the military regulations and was thankful to his host for expressing them in language almost as vigorous as he could do it himself in the United States tongue. We waited at the hotel the next morning, with our things all packed for the New Zealand steamer, but understanding from the officer’s orders that we were all under strong suspicion as questionable char- acters. About noon another officer called at the hotel and we were all ordered to appear before him in the hotel parlor or lounge. There, to my great surprise the camera was returned to us, minus all the films that had been in it. The officer told us in language that bordered on the magisterial that the films were considered to be the prize of war, 222 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY and could not by any possibility be returned not even if they were, as I declared them to be, only pictures of Australian friends and scenes that had no more to do with the war than the post cards down town in the book shop window. To this, the officer replied that he was acting under orders from the highest military authority, and he gave us all to understand that our act in attempting to take a photograph of the Heads was reprehensible in the extreme. I am confident that from first to last he suspected us of some deep and damnable German plot to blow up the fortifications, capture the transports in the harbor, surround the troops that were being mobilized, seize the city of Sydney, poison the inhabitants and hoist the German flag over the City Hall, and proclaim a Hohen- zollern Annex to the Fatherland. He kept us under the closest interrogation for nearly an hour, during which time I gave him every possible proof of our American ancestry, referring him to the magistrate who had been our host, to nearly every clergyman in Sydney .in two of whose churches I had preached, to the press notices of meetings held in Melbourne © where the largest halls had been filled, and page notices of the meetings had been published. I spread these proofs all before the military gentlemen, but he did not appear to be at all satisfied, and only with great reluctance gave his consent to our de- parture for Wellington on the afternoon boat. I . THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 223 took occasion to assure him that we did not plan to return to Sydney, and I wanted to add that my wife did not have any bombs concealed in her traveling bag with which to send the boat and all its crew and freight and passengers to the bottom, all the members of our family, of course, accom- panying them. By making superhuman exertions we managed with the help of our merchant and magisterial friend to catch the boat just in time. The officer, with two others in full uniform were present on the dock as the steamer cleared, and they must have heaved a sigh of relief at our de- parture, priding themselves that their military duty had been strictly performed, and the rules of war enforced with impartial justice. As we sailed out of the Heads I took occasion to warn my son not to look at them as we passed out, as it might lead to another arrest and one arrest a week was all we needed to make us proud of our country and long to get back to it. When we reached Wellington I found that the Alliance had met and decided to go on with the program or at least start it and see if the results would justify it. To their surprise and to mine, after we had started the campaign it seemed to go of its own accord, and in following the plan carefully laid out by the Committee, with the New Zealand shrewdness and attention to detail characteristic of them, with their chairmen attending to the super- 224 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY intending of local affairs, I traveled all over the country going from Auckland to Invercargil, and taking in nearly thirty places in between, occupying in all a little over five weeks. I have always thought that one reason why the people in every place responded to the call to sup- port a prohibition campaign during the stress and excitement of mobilization for a great war was be- cause the people of New Zealand had for years been very much interested in national prohibition and the matter of drink on the troop ships and the effect of an army canteen on their boys was a matter that excited the greatest concern. To the credit of New Zealand military authorities it must be said that for the first time in the histroy of the local army the troop ships that sailed from Wellington and Auckland went overseas without any ship canteen that carried liquor. The announcement of this order from the commanding officer roused great enthus- iasm among all the temperance and prohibition peo- ple of all the towns where the Alliance had planned and carried out the meetings in which I had the privilege of taking part with a number of local speakers. I may say here that the finances of the campaign were entirely taken care of by the Alli- ance. No solicitation for funds was made at the meetings themselves, and the voluntary offering called for at the close of each gathering was always an offering for the war fund, not for the Alliance THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 225 prohibition fund. I never knew the details of the financial plan of meeting expenses, but all I know is that the Committee lived up to the original con- tract made with me before the emergency of the war was thought of, and my expenses for the possible journey home were generously met as I had thought, at one time when I was hardly able to pay my hotel bills in Sydney, they might not be. Acting on the advice of the Committee as I started on my travels down the long length of the country I bought a “Tourist” ticket or more exactly, a ‘‘time’’ ticket, paying ten pounds, or about $48 for transportation on either the government owned rail- roads or steamboat lines good for a period of seven weeks. This kind of railroad ticket is a boon to the constant traveler, as I did not have to buy any more tickets for seven weeks, I did not have to tell the guard where I was going, I was entitled to ride day and night on any train or boat as long as I[ wished within the limit of the seven weeks period, in fact I could have lived on the trains and boats every hour of the seven weeks. It cost me about a quarter of a cent a mile to travel in New Zealand and I have remembered that convenience, as well as the govern- ment rule against tipping, whenever I am traveling in my own country, and do not feel easy in my mind if I leave the Pullman diner without adding a good per cent of the price of my meal to the salary of the man who has waited on me and is a servant of 226 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY the traveler’s railroad corporation which pays good dividends sometimes, a percent of which must come out of the American traveler’s good natured stupid- ity. In this connection I remember that the best meal I ever ate on a railroad diner I ate on the New Zealand railroads, paying two shillings, or forty- eight cents for a meal that consisted of soup, fish, a choice of three kinds of meat including the choic- est mutton, three vegetables, coffee or tea, bread and butter, cheese, and a pudding or some form of pastry for dessert. And to crown the entire feast, no fee to the waiter under penalty of breaking the rules of the road. My itinerary for five weeks, on a national pro- hibition program, during the excitement and stress of a population engrossed with the drafting of its men to go over twelve thousand miles to fight for a country that had only a nominal political claim on its country, included all of New Zealand, begin- ning with Auckland, then to Wellington, to Christ- church, Amaru, Timaru, Rotarua, Dunedin and Invercargil, the largest town nearest the South Pole. At every one of these places and points between, a few only on the west coast, enormous crowds filled the town halls or churches, and great enthusiasm was shown, to such an extent that I have never been able to explain the matter except by taking account of the New Zealand character, which is no more like that of the average Australian than the Irish THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 227 are like the Jews. J am quite convinced that no such prohibition campaign could by any possibility have been carried on in Australia as was carried through successfully in New Zealand. The people in every town I entered and wherever I spoke or preached seemed to me to be like Yankeeized Brit- ishers. ‘They were not like either British or Cana- dian, but peculiar to their own country and to the freedom of a land that has tried new laws and estab- lished new customs. They have not been afraid of attempting untried things or giving them up when they found they did not work. During the entire five weeks filled with the excite- ment of huge gatherings in strange places, the one theme of the people was the war and its probable outcome and always that question put at every gathering ‘““What will the United States do?” And then out we would go from the meeting place and the instant sight that would greet us would be the citizen night drilling for home defence, the pas- sage of recruits bound for the boats or the camp, the stir and the noise and the ominous grim presence of that monster Mars, calling without remorse or pity the choicest and youngest of a nation’s best blood to pour it out on the sacrificial stone. And the companies that filed past that attracted our attention perhaps with keenest interest were the Maori troops, the dark skinned and athletic young 228 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY men of the original native stock of New Zealand, who one hundred years ago were fighting the British army, and many times beating it with their remark- able fortifications and unequalled bravery. Silently I see these youths marching past in the towns on the east coast, eager to do their part out of loyalty to the British Empire, although they have never seen its King or known exactly what the whole thing is about. The whole hearted loyalty that both the Australian and New Zealand people displayed for the British Empire was a wonderful tribute to the something that has made possible the knitting to- gether of the English speaking peoples who have at some time or other owed allegiance to the English rule. I had some rather unusual experiences on this New Zealand trip, not all of them occasioned by the war atmosphere. At Gore, the first town in New Zealand to enact a local option law, I spoke in a large hall where the presiding officer was a local minister, the man who had been responsible for the prohibitory sentiment and action. The evening was so raw and chilly that most of the men in the — audience wore their overcoats, as in accordance with New Zealand custom as in Great Britain, there was no heating plant in the hall except a small fire- place that looked as if any fire built in it would die of sheer discouragement on account of the size of the room. The committee and the chairman and THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 229 myself sat on the enormous platform, and a good quartette of young men sang some opening selec- tions, their frosty breaths streaming across the chilly platform, varying in degree of density and length as they sang pianissimo or fortissimo. I was introduced by the chairman who concluded his words of introduction by saying, “I am going to ask Dr. Sheldon if he will be willing to have the evening offering taken when he is about half through his address, and after the offering resume where he left off.” He paused a moment and looked at me, and as it was a new idea to me never before proposed I naturally hesitated a moment, but I have learned in time to accept the unusual and untried things that a public speaker may meet, and I nodded assent, and the chairman seemed satisfied and the quartette sang again to the accompaniment of steam clouds that wafted gracefully across the hall, before it was my turn to speak one half of my piece before the offering was taken up. I tried to work my speech up to a fitting climax that would permit of a proper place to stop for the offering, but not being used to the thing I believe my effort was only partly successful. The offering however, was taken up successfully, and at its con- clusion the frosty voiced quartette sang another selection and I resumed where I had left off, and as I did so I noticed the smile of satisfaction on the 280 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY face of the chairman, who I afterwards learned was a good Scotch Presbyterian. At the close of the meeting I went home with his brother as he was entertaining me over night. After we were inside his house where I was thankful to find a cheerful fire in a good sized grate, he volun- teered the information that I am afraid I would never have plucked up courage enough to ask him for, by telling me that the Gore audiences some- times had the habit of going away in more or less large sections before an offering was taken, if the offering came after an address. ‘So I thought of the plan we tried tonight, and it worked well, my brother. I knew the audience would not go away without getting their money’s worth in your address, after they had paid down their hard money. You stopped in a good place, and had them guessing as to the last half of that story you told. By the way, what was the exact point of it?’ (I should have said that Gore was one exception to the regular custom during the campaign of taking the offering for the war fund. The Gore people stipulated that my expenses should be paid out of an evening offer- ing and that the contribution to the war fund would be met by a special local pledge.) Perhaps I do not need to add again that my host and most of his people were good Scotch Presbyterians. There was one good passenger boat left on the Pacific under the British flag, and that was the THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 231 Niagara, an oil burner which had not been com- mandeered for transport service. We finally secured passage for the United States on this boat, a very beautiful and handsomely equipped vessel, and left Wellington the last of September. The regular route of the Niagara was via Honolulu to San Fran- cisco and from there to Victoria. But there were three German war ships in the Pacific which had been sinking New Zealand mutton boats. These were the Leipsic, the Scharnhorst, and the Gneis- enau. The captain of the Niagara had his orders from the company to be on the constant look out for these German boats, as they were on the lookout for the Niagara. We went straight up across the Pacific for twenty-one days and nights not stopping at Honolulu or San Francisco, but making direct for Victoria, which we reached without meeting a single vessel on the way. At night the canvas cur- tains were stretched around the decks and double vestibules were built in front of all the lounge and cabin doorways. No lights were displayed, not even the starboard and port, and we went up in the dark, a dismal and gloomy little group of passengers, only a handful that were thrown together like haphazard travelers across the world, the one event that ob- truded into every heart and mind being the mon- strous bloody and pagan thing that the centuries even after Christ have not yet wiped off the pages of even christian civilization. The German war 232 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY ships were all sunk a few weeks later off the Falk- land Islands. I went directly from this trip across the Pacific into the campaign of the Flying Squadron, joining the other groups at Seattle, and letting Mrs. Shel- don and the boy continue on to our home in Kansas which I did not see again until the Squadron had swung clear around the map, from Maine to Texas. I have already told the story of that travel period, and it does not need repeating in this chapter. But I do not want to close this travel narrative without paying a tribute to the men and women who direct the ways of the traveler. In all the hundreds of thousands of miles I have traveled by all sorts of conveyances, I have never met with an accident or been subjected to any but the most trivial annoy- ances. I think it speaks volumes for the integrity and faithful attention to daily duty on the part of the thousands of employees on the railroads that passengers are carried so safely and decently. The overwhelming majority of persons who are helping a train or a steamer to arrive are doing their work day and night without thanks or praise. If any one © out of the many who are responsible for human safety and comfort as they travel were to fail of common tasks the whole thing would collapse re- peatedly and travel would be an adventure too dan- gerous to undertake. I also wish to express my great feeling of grati- THE TRAVEL CHAPTER 233 tude for the pleasant and enduring friendships that have been my privilege to enjoy in the different coun- tries visited. Any disagreeable or unusual experi- ences with folks have been incidental. I owe to the English people and to large numbers in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and Australia and New Zea- land a debt of gratitude for wonderful kindness shown me in ways that cannot be described in any book. ‘These are the choicest souvenirs I cherish as I unpack my bag at the end of the journey, and pray for blessings not my own, but those of a Greater One, to rest on all who have made the travel chapter of my life interesting and memorable. CHAPTER NINE THE KANSAS CHAPTER If the events and comments in this chapter seem to be thrown together without any attention to logical order and precision, it is because it is done on purpose. I have been writing articles and edi- torials and sermons and stories all my life with the thought of the critic and reviewer more or less in my mind, and I am going to write this chapter just as I please. I like to think that Kansas, ever since it began to be known, has acted that way, and a chapter that is headed up with that name ought to be consistently independent and go along as if there wasn’t any thing else in the universe except itself. I am going to start right off by saying I like Kansas, and Kansas folks. People who have lived east of the Harlem river all their lives and who think Kansas has no scenery, and that the people are also queer, do not understand prairie countries or folks. There is no scenery anywhere more beau- tiful than prairie scenery, and no people more inter- esting than prairie people. My boyhood was spent on the prairies of South Dakota, and thirty-five years of my manhood have been spent on the prairies of 234 THE KANSAS CHAPTER 235 Kansas, and I have lived in the mountains and beside the two seas, and the prairie has a charm and a restfulness and an enduring quality that neither the mountains nor the sea can impart. When it comes to folks, I confess to a liking for people of independent and unconventional habits. Kansas is full of them. It has been made by them; folks like Secretary of Agriculture F. D. Coburn who when the Governor of Kansas and the Legisla- ture and all the people in Kansas wanted him to be a Senator and go to Washington, and offered the senatorship to him, said plainly, “I don’t want it. Let me alone. I like what I am doing here;’’ folks like William Allen White of Emporia, who never did a mean thing, and no one knows how many good ones, they are so many and so shyly done. When he entered on the campaign for the Governorship of Kansas, the year that President Coolidge was elected by saying little and saving much, Mr. White made ‘ his campaign as an anti-Klan candidate. He had no organization, and did not want one. When the campaign was over he had spoken to 100,000 people and after the election was over and the votes counted he had 100,000 marked for him. The evening he spoke on the anti-Klan issue in Topeka he asked me to introduce him. It was not necessary, but I consented, and said as little as seemed to me to be decent, inasmuch as the crowd that filled the auditor- ium to the roof, and spilled out of the windows had 236 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY come to hear him. I have always believed that intro- ductory speeches are unnecessary, and audiences gen- erally regard them as a nuisance and worse. ‘The week following that White meeting I received a lot of letters protesting against my little talk, calling it an unfair political attack on the Klan. All of which simply strengthened my convictions that in- troductory talks are a bore and a failure. I vowed then that I would never try to introduce any one again, unless it was Mr. White. I would count it an honor to introduce him anywhere any time al- though he needs less introducing than any Kansas man I know. I like Mr. White because he is not afraid to be what he seems to be, and because he had the courage to refuse to print in the Emporia Gazette any cross word puzzles. Any man who has the courage to face popular disfavor by refusing to do a thing like that has my hearty approval, especially when he covers cross sections of American life with the honest breadth of conviction of my friend from that broadcasted town called Emporia. I like Kansas folks like Mr. Harold T. Chase the editor of the Topeka Daily Capital who has written more editorials than any editor in this country. Mr. Chase was associated with me during the week of the experiment with the Capital as a Christian daily. I do not know what would have happened to me that week if I had not had the companionship and coun- sel of his wise and well equipped experience of news- THE KANSAS CHAPTER 237 papers and news. It is impossible to mention all the Kansas folk who helped me that week and of whom I shall always think with kindest memory. It would take another book, indeed, to mention by name all the Kansas people whom I know and for whom I would like to write,—not obituary notices, but Birthday Greetings, or Wedding Anniversary con- gratulations. If they do not find their names men- tioned anywhere in this Kansas chapter it is not because I have forgotten them, but because there are so many of them. Those I have mentioned or may yet, before I am through, are types of Kansas folks, the sort that speak the United States lan- guage, using a Kansas dictionary, and reserving the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of independent ideals, some of which work when made into laws by the legislature, and others of which may be de- clared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, for the general well being of the state as a whole. And the mention of the Supreme Court of Kansas calls up another Kansas man whom I like and have come to honor, and that is the Chief Justice, Judge W. A. Johnston, who has been at the head of the Supreme Bench for more than forty years, under all administrations, a Canadian by birth, but a resident of Kansas for more than fifty years, re-elected six times, and good for six times more, I hope, one of those who keep alive our faith in civic integrity and untarnished citizenship. 238 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY If this were a logical narrative it would be a perfectly proper thing right here to say something about law enforcement in Kansas, and relate some little known history illustrating it. At the risk of being proper I will tell one or two stories about the way the prohibitory law was disobeyed and enforced thirty-five years ago. It may remind some of those who may read this chapter of how far we have come since the prohibitory law was passed in the year 1881. It was the summer of 1892. Down on the Avenue, Kansas Avenue, Topeka, it was a common jest that the town was wide open, and that if any one wanted a drink all he had to do was to walk into any one of twenty-five different drug stores and get all the beer and whisky and brandy he wanted and get it without signing up for it. The Kansas law at that time gave drug stores permits to sell a quart of beer or whisky for medicinal purposes. The purchaser under the law was compelled to swear to his particular illness or ailment and then sign his name to the druggist’s permit which document was filed with the Probate Court, and was open to in- spection by any citizen who cared to look over the list. It was a most astonishing list, as I found out once when I went into the Probate Court’s office and looked it over. One of Topeka’s well known citi- zen’s had had a drink every day for a month, and THE KANSAS CHAPTER 239 a new disease nearly every day. Near the end of the month he had apparently run out of diseases, for he had put down as the ailment for which he needed medicinal help, ‘“Water on the stomach.” .He had never had any water on his stomach for years, and the druggist knew him as a confirmed toper and was willing to perjure his own soul for fifty cents, and did so very many times every day. In fact at the time this incident I am going to relate took place there was no pretense on the part of scores of drug stores to go through the legal formal- ity of issuing permits, but the customer purchased his drink as freely as he would buy a toothbrush or a cake of soap. It was commonly understood all over the town that these drug stores were nothing but joints in disguise, carrying a meager supply of drugs but making most of their money by the sale of whisky and beer. In addition to these pretended drug stores the town was full of regular joints that were running openly on the Avenue and Quincy street, under police protection or with regularly as- sessed fines of so much a month. It was a wide open town after more than ten years of statutory prohibition. The county attorney, who has always been the one person under the Kansas prohibitory law upon whom has fallen the duty of law enforcement, was doing nothing. The conditions lay heavy on my soul, for no one seemed to care. But thinking it all 240 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY over one day while walking past a drug store on the Avenue and noting the crowd of citizens lined up at the counter waiting for their daily drink, I met one of my deacons, Mr. A. G. Carruth. He was at the time an expert proofreader for a publishing firm, and said to be the best proofreader in the state. And while I am speaking of Kansas people I have liked, Mr. Carruth was one. ‘The most honest minded and truthful minded man of my acquaintance at that time. If his middle name was “Gospel,” he did not belie it. I mentioned the drug store business to him, and he instantly responded, saying the conditions had be- come unbearable, that is, meaning to his own sense of what was right under the law. I suggested to him that we get evidence and present it to the county attorney and compel him to prosecute. He agreed at once, and without waiting to make any careful plans we walked into the first drug store in the block and bought a dozen bottles of beer, without signing up for anything. We then went down the Avenue two blocks farther and I bought two bottles of whisky of a drug store clerk. At the exact moment when the bottles passed from the clerk’s hands to mine, Mr. Carruth was standing behind me and did not actually see the bottles handed to me by the clerk, but he did see me pay him the money and the next second when I turned to go out, he of course, saw the bottles in my THE KANSAS CHAPTER 241 hands. I am mentioning these apparently trifling details, because under the old Kansas law a case against a prohibitory law breaker could not be proved except on the evidence of two witnesses. When this special case came up before the District Court in a long and bitter legal contest on the part of the lawyer for the drug stores, Mr. Carruth was obliged to confess that he did not see the actual passing of the whisky bottles from the drug store clerk to me, but he did see me pay him the money and the next second saw me with the bottles which I had not had a second before. Yet on this tech- nicality the case was thrown out, and the drug store man declared not guilty, although the Judge, the jury, the spectators and everyone in the crowded court room knew that the clerk had sold me the whisky and that I could not have bought it any- where else. (It may be said here that in going over this case with us before the trial came off, the county attorney strongly advised Mr. Carruth to testify that he saw the entire transaction of the purchase, saying that unless he testified to seeing the bottles pass from the clerk to my hands the case would surely go by default. The fact that Mr. Carruth refused to lie about the facts has always stood up in my mind like a monument of integrity. No one but himself and myself would ever have known that his testimony was false, and it would have been easy for the average man to say that the end justified the 242 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY means.) A few days after this, while Mr. Carruth and myself were securing more evidence from the numerous joints in ‘Topeka, to give the county attor- ney more cases, he was attacked by the liquor men on lower Kansas Avenue, and thrown down and handled so roughly that his leg was broken and he was invalided at his home for several weeks. Dur- ing that entire time while I visited him and went over our adventures together, he never expressed a moment’s regret over his action in getting evidence, and during a period of vicious anonymous letters directed to both of us by the liquor element he never lost his equanimity or his sense of personal faith in the righteousness of his acts. The proprietor of the first drug store from which we bought a dozen bottles of beer was tried in the District Court and found guilty on six counts, which under the law meant six hundred dollars and six months in jail. He appealed his case to Governor Leedy, the Democratic incumbent, and received a full pardon, and never paid a dollar of fine or served one day in jail. The cases against the jointists were vigorously prosecuted by the county attorney, and he secured over twenty convictions. ‘The county jail became crowded. It was during that period that Mr. Car- ruth and myself received many threatening letters. I investigated the conditions of some of the families of the jointists, and found that they were in real THE KANSAS CHAPTER 243 need, after the men who had been making a living by breaking the law were shut up. I went to my Ladies’ Aid Society in the church and asked the women if they would be willing to visit some of the homes of the convicted jointists and see what they needed. ‘They not only did so, but they paid the grocery bills and rent of several families, and saw that none of them suffered while the men were serv- ing out their time. ‘There has been a current so- called funny paragraph running through some of the daily press making slighting remarks about church Ladies’ Aid Societies, but I have never found any thing funny about the paragraphs, although I have sometimes wondered what funny looking people those must be who write the paragraphs. During the time that the jointists were in jail I visited them there and remember taking books and papers to them. I also invited them to come to church when they were able. Three of the jointists borrowed what at the time seemed like a considerable amount of money from me, and it has not been returned. But that was only a little over thirty years ago, and there is plenty of time yet. If any one thinks that Kansas is not a law abiding state and that the prohibitory law is not enforced at the present time I would advise him to hark back thirty years and recall the facts of those times, and the fight that the people had with a class of criminals including local officials, and a drug store clause to 244 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY the prohibitory amendment which made law enforce- ment not only difficult, but almost impossible. In carrying on social settlement work in the Negro dis- trict called Tennesseetown near my church [ soon found that the lawless element there was hindering all our work, and that a specially vicious nest of joints was being operated by a Negro jointist, two of whose children were in our Kindergarten school in Tennesseetown, the first Kindergarten school for Negroes west of the Mississippi. At this time the Chief of Police in Topeka was Mr. Frank M. Stahl, who was a member of my church, and another Kansas man whom I greatly respected for his courage and convictions. Mr. Stahl maintained for many years a Fourth of July picnic in a grove on his farm near Topeka, and every year on that date a prohibition rally was held there, to which thousands of people went, and where the principles of prohibition were taught, and sung, and debated, and acted with a play put on at night by the sons and daughters of the farmers of the community. I notified Mr. Stahl of the joints in Tennessee- | town and asked him to arrest the owner of the worst place. He heard of the impending raid and came over to my church study one morning to interview me on the subject. He was a burly specimen and came at once to the point. ‘How much do you want for your Kindergar- ten?” was his opening remark. THE KANSAS CHAPTER 245 I did not exactly understand what he meant, and at that time the Kindergarten was in great need of funds, as I had exhausted all of my available means and did not know where to raise the next hundred dollars to pay the next month’s bills, so I told the man I could use any amount of money over there. He pulled out a roll of bills and said, ‘‘Here’s two hundred if you will call Mr. Stahl off my place.” I understood in a minute what his question meant, and it was the first time a voluntary contribution of that size had presented itself to my depleted treas- ury. It seemed a little difficult to make him under- stand that his money was too tainted to spend on training even his own children to walk the straight and sober path. Besides, I had been one of a few to sympathize with Dr. Washington Gladden at the time he created a sensation in Congregational cir- cles by denouncing the acceptance of Standard Oil money for foreign missions. I pleaded with the jointist to clean up his place for the sake of his children whom we were trying to make good citi- zens, but my plea was not so strong as his attach- ment to his joint, and that evening Brother Stahl descended on the place and in spite of a bull dog guard and a high board fence, the Chief cleaned up one dark spot in Tennesseetown, and from that time on the jointists began to fade away, and when Carrie Nation appeared on the Kansas map a short time afterwards, law enforcement generally all over the 246 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY state became popular and has steadily become the habit instead of the occasional practice. Mrs. Na- tion is another Kansas person whom I shall always like. Even the jointists whose places of business she freely advertised and turned into junk stores re- spected her. She may have broken the law when she broke up a joint and threw her little hatchet through the front windows, but I shall always hold her in high esteem in comparison with those smug county attorneys who helped the jointists break the prohibi- tory law by letting their places alone. It is some sat- isfaction at the present time to remember that so far as known not one recreant county attorney of those fighting days who refused to do his sworn duty has ever risen out of his political grave dug by himself. On the other hand Kansas has no more splendid example of the political reward awaiting public officials who are not afraid of evil doers, than Senator Charles Curtis, who while county attorney for Shawnee County, in which Topeka stands, suc- cessfully prosecuted the lawbreakers without fear or favor, and won the first step towards his present © honorable position as the leader of the National Senate, respected and loved by Kansas citizens of all political faiths. I am afraid this chapter has already too many logical sequences, but it seems in order here to relate an interesting little incident about President Roose- velt. It was during the time following his second THE KANSAS CHAPTER 24:7 message to the Congress, and at the time when Kansas was still fighting its prohibition battle with- out any help from the Administration which had refused to protect the state law with an interstate commerce act, forbidding the shipment of liquor from other states into a prohibition state. Mr. Roosevelt’s message contained 30,000 words. The New York Times and other metropolitan papers printed it entire. Other papers printed headings. In this message Mr. Roosevelt mentioned a num- ber of things that he called a menace to the welfare of the nation. He called attention to the loss of our merchant marine, the destruction of our forests, the labor and industrial conditions, the uncurbed trusts, and the race riots. It was a vigorous denunciation in the Colonel’s strong and picturesque language of certain national wrongs. But there was not a word about the saloon, the brewery and distillery. Not a sentence about the menace of the established and licensed liquor trade. And this was before the thought of anything like national prohibition. Liquor was still strong in politics and in the affairs of cities. Reading Mr. Roosevelt’s message clear through I was struck more by this silence than by any of his thundering assaults on the things he called a menace. So in a moment of impulse I wrote him asking him why he had not mentioned the liquor trade as a menace to the welfare of this republic. I did not 248 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY expect any reply, but he did answer my letter by asking me to come on to Washington and talk the matter over. I was getting ready to go when he sent word that he had been suddenly called away from Washington to the bedside of his son who was a student at the Groton school in Massachusetts and had been suddenly taken ill there. So I never had that talk, which I shall always regret, because I know the mind of Mr. Roosevelt was always open and in the last years of his life he was a powerful champion for national prohibition and rejoiced when the measure passed the Congress. It was during the second year of Mr. Roosevelt’s presidency that Mr. Fred Mitchell and Mr. William Johnson, his associate, became deeply interested in the life of the Navaho Indians in the Painted desert of Arizona. Mr. Mitchell is another Kansas man who, if remarkable missionaries were as well known and mentioned by the great Press as base ball and basket ball heroes, would not have to be written up by ministers. Only twenty years ago he and Mr. Johnson went out to the Navahos and began a work there that stands without a parallel in American achievement for reaching and building up the per- sonal virtues of a primitive people, who for genera- tions had been totally neglected by what we call the helpful influences of civilization. ‘This is not the place to tell that remarkable story, but inas- much as a Kansas man was such a large part of THE KANSAS CHAPTER 249 it, and inasmuch as it was a part of my own parish experiences, it seems appropriate to tell a part of one small incident of the whole. The Navahos were threatened by the cattlemen of Arizona in the matter of their pasture for their sheep. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Mitchell became in- terested to such an extent that finally Mr. Johnson with three of ‘the old Indians went to Washington to see President Roosevelt to help save the valuable pastureland on which they had been living for very many years. On the way east Mr. Johnson stopped over night with me, and told of his reason for the trip. On the return from Washington, the missionary and his three Navahos stopped over again, and told in graphic terms the result of their meeting with Mr. Roosevelt. The cattlemen had already been to Washington to present their side of the claim to the land. Mr. Johnson had no lobby and no political influence. He went as an individual who wanted to see justice done a needy people. Mr. Roosevelt gave him a decent hearing, the three old Indians supplementing the missionary arguments with their own simple story of years of undisputed possession of land. After he had heard the whole story, Mr. Johnson told me that the President brought down his fist on the table and said, ‘“‘These Indians shall have their rights!” He sent at once for the papers and had an executive order made out, giving the 250 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Navahos possession of the grazing and pasture land so necessary to the very life of their families. The beauty and power of that episode in the life of these two Kansas men as they touched my parish even thus lightly, as they passed like gentle pilgrims across our prairies and back to their home in the Painted desert with Peshlikietsetti, and Begoetin, and Touchiniteel, the old men who had been on to see the Great Father, abides with me for long years of gracious memory. A great book could be written of the romance of these lovers of men, but I do not know of any one gifted enough to do it justice. It is already an idyl, an epic in American history filled with romantic adventure and deep tragedy and marks of the cross and the glory of the miracle of achievement. It is a tragedy in American everyday life that the news of the ball room and of the base ball field and of the motion picture world seem to be more valuable than stories of human adventure in the supernal arena of the surpassing love of man for man. Among the almost unbelievable accom- plishments of these two young men after less than twenty years among the Navahos is a Handbook of Navaho Grammar and Dictionary which Mr. Mitchell has helped to construct. It is the first time these Americans have been able to see their own language in print. It is a triumph of patience in language study, carried on under tremendous diffi- culties, by the side of which trying to find the North THE KANSAS CHAPTER 251 Pole or scale Mount Everest is child’s play in a flower garden on a summer day in July. Sometime during the summer of the year 1910 I preached a sermon on the right way to police a city. It was considered to be too ideal to be practical. That is the common interpretation of ideals. Where- as the only things that really work are ideals. My belief was then, and is now, that our entire police system is wrong, and that instead of placing over our cities a group of men whose main business 1s to discover crime and help to punish it, we should place over our cities a missionary police force of men and women, as well equipped to redeem and help man- kind as the best educated men and women we send abroad to preach and teach the redemptive Gospel. Our missionaries abroad work miracles of redemp- tion among the most depraved and degraded peoples. Why should we not expect to get similar results by using the same sort of policemen and policewomen in our city force? Mr. R. S. Cofran had been elected Mayor of Topeka in a three cornered municipal election. The day after his election he asked me to come down to the Auditorium and when I met him there he urged me to accept a place as Police Commissioner. I accepted on condition that I would have a free hand in helping to appoint policemen and policewomen and drawing up rules for their conduct and general duties. 252 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Mayor Cofran gave me every power that his office permitted. And I did my best, but it did not amount to much, because I had no missionary material out of which to make the kind of policeman I believe in. I did, however, succeed in having appointed by the Mayor one policewoman, Miss Eva Corning, so far as I know the first real missionary policewoman in any city in the United States. She entered on her duties under the handicap of some ridicule and con- siderable distrust on the part of the general public, but she proved to be an unusually useful and capable oficial. Her reports sent back to the Department were filled with wise suggestions and during her entire service she did a truly remarkable work in prevention. If she had been permitted to continue for a period of years she would have justified the principle of missionary police service, and proved my argument for such service as applied to the entire police system in our American management of city life. | While I was Police Commissioner I was associated with Hank Lindsay, a professional bondsman for jointists, and together we constituted a court, which under the city ordinances at that time gave us power to try cases and remove officers for cause. We tried several such cases, and had the usual amount of criticism and advice that goes with such procedure. I tried to make rules forbidding the police officers from smoking while on duty, and I honestly tried to THE KANSAS CHAPTER 253 raise the standard of the force in many ways, but I was convinced after my short term of office expired that nearly all my plans failed on account of the im- possibility of securing the right sort of human ma- terial with which to work. Several Washburn Col- lege graduates became interested in the idea of police service and if I had been able to offer them a really living wage for the duties to be performed I think a number would have volunteered to enter the busi- ness. But the pay at that time for a policeman was ridiculously small, and I did not have the heart to urge men like college men to go where they would be unable to support a family and look forward to something like real life. At the same time I shall always believe that nothing short of the highest sort of training and preparation will be required of the missionary police of the future. And I am well con- vinced that the saving of the awful waste which is now a part of an absurd and stupid method of deal- ing with human problems in our cities would more than meet the expenses of double the present number of city officers who would be paid double the amount the present police now receive. I am also convinced that the average person who reads this will silently say that the whole idea is too ideal and fantastic to be carried out in practical life. At the same time I have noticed in my study of civilization so far that what are called ‘“‘practical’”” methods employed by hard headed practical men produce some of the 254 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY greatest failures known to mankind. The “prac- tical’ management of human affairs has so far failed to stop war, race hate, international complications, industrial disorder, crime, and general depravity. The use of ideal methods could not possibly result in any thing more stupid and wasteful than the practical methods so far employed in the govern- ment of nations and cities. For the reasons for my convictions on this subject please turn to the teach- ings of Jesus, found in an old book called the New Testament. Almost right across the street from where I live in Topeka is Washburn College. During the last thirty-five years I have known hundreds of the stu- dents, very many of whom have been members of my church and active in it. Most of these students _ have been farmers’ boys and girls, born and raised on Kansas farms or in small Kansas towns. ‘They have the Kansas characteristics and speak the lan- guage of the prairies, and see a lot of scenery in the sky. After this lapse of time, seeing there is only one member of the College Board of Trus- tees living who was a member of it thirty years ago, I hope it may not be considered out of place to say that the Board asked me to become president of the college, after the death of Dr. Peter Mc- Vicar. I did not consider myself rightly equipped and trained for such a position and declined the invitation, and the Board never made their invita- THE KANSAS CHAPTER 255 tion public, for which I was thankful. But all through the years I think I can truly say that the student life of the College appealed to me strongly and if I could have had a free hand to teach and live with the students, doing whatever administrative duties I was fit to carry on, I might have accepted the Board’s offer. But the thought of entering a place where most of my time must be spent in raising money appalled me, inasmuch as all my life I have had all I could do in raising money for my own real needs. The confronting of a task that demanded ability to raise money for an institution daunted me, and I knew without any debate with myself or others that I would fail at the very point where failure would spell defeat for the college. Under Dr. Peter McVicar’s sturdy Scotch adminis- tration Washburn grew steadily and many remark- able incidents occurred in connection with the student body and my church, which would require a book larger than this to relate. One of them has, I think, no parallel in college history. If the narrative seems personal, it is because it was. Professor W. E. Cragin was at the head of the department of Geology and Applied Sciences. He was a most enthusiastic teacher and like the absent minded professors you read about. One day he went down-town on the horse cars which were drawn by a span of mules all the way from the college to the Santa Fé depot. He took with him his baby, six 256 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY months old. When the professor left the car on the avenue, he forgot the baby, who was propped up in a corner. When the father came home at noon the mother naturally asked him where the baby was. The professor could not remember the particular car in which he had left the baby, but the child was fin- ally located after he had had several pleasant round trip rides from the college to the Santa Fé. But when it came to his keen knowledge of his business as a geologist and scientist the Professor was not at all absent minded nor incapable of taking care of himself. He took up his Topeka Daily Capital one morning and read that a large meteorite had fallen on a farm in western Kansas. Instantly he was interested. ‘he paper did not say how large the meteorite was nor what its value probably was, but the Professor went at once to the head of the college to borrow the necessary funds to make a bid for the heavenly visitor and buy it for the college. But the President with Scotch caution did not wish to advance any amount, so the professor went to one of the banks and borrowed the money, $500, after asking me to go on the note with him, which I did. Which was at least a mark of business sa- gacity, seeing he owed over $1200 on old college debts and was hard pressed to make payments on his regular living expenses. But he reckoned on making good from that sky stranger, and the event proved that he was justified in staking the future THE KANSAS CHAPTER 257 on his gamble with a piece of a star or whatever it is that composes meteorites. The thing had buried itself near the farmer’s house, and was several feet deep in the ground. When it had been dug up it was discovered to be as large as a good sized blacksmith’s anvil, and was indented all over with marks that looked as if red hot marbles had been dropped on it when it was plastic. The weight of it was over five hundred pounds. Cragin dickered with the farmer over the price and finally paid him $200 for it. He boxed it up and freighted it to Topeka and had it taken out to the college, and placed in the physics room. I happened to be passing through the hall when the meteorite was brought in and the Professor asked me to come in and look at it. He was greatly excited over his find and in his excitement he confessed what I think was a piece of personal college history. He said the President had claimed the meteorite as col- lege property, but the claim was denied by the Pro- fessor who said with some force that he had bought the thing with his own money and at his own risk, and was going to keep it. The matter was finally settled by his ownership being acknowledged, and he disposed of parts of the meteorite by dividing it up into several pieces which he sold to various colleges and museums. ‘The entire amount he received from these sales paid up all his college debts, together with his loan from the bank, and cleared up several 258 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY embarrassing accounts in town. At the same time it helped me also in an incidental way to meet one or two little bills of my own that were troubling me. For the story seemed to lend itself to excusable fic- tion form, and I sat down the next night and wrote what I[ called ‘The Craigston Meteorite,” and sent it to the Youth’s Companion. They paid me $100 for it. It is a poor stone from heaven that cannot kill two bills on earth. The best reason why I like Kansas is because it has been the home of my church for over thirty-five years, and where most of my best friends live. I have said in a previous chapter but it will bear re- peating here,—that I believe no minister ever had greater liberty shown him by his people than I re- ceived from the people of my parish. Freedom of thought and expression is a part of the Kansas at- mosphere. I never knew a single moment of fear or question in my mind as to the liberty I had to do and say what I wanted to. I knew always that the strong and individual men in the parish often dif- fered from me in matters theological and political, and they were not slow in telling me so. But when it came to acting on my own initiative in the pulpit or in public I knew without their telling me, that the field was open without the slightest hint of op- position or even advice unless I asked for it. I hope I had the sense and christian willingness to do that often. But the air of freedom that every min- THE KANSAS CHAPTER 259 ister prizes more than an advance in salary, blew around me all through the years with the volume and freshness of the prairie breezes that start some- where in the Rocky Mountains and do not stop until they hit the Alleghenys, and begin to get discouraged only about the time they reach the New York Pali- sades. It was with a real sense of losing something out of my very structure after a serious illness in the year 1918 that I was obliged to resign from my pastorate of the Central Congregational Church and for several months during a slow recovery, I felt like a man without a country, and almost with- out a home. It seemed to me that I had better revert back to the farm and spend the rest of my days somewhere in Adam’s garden. But a call came from the Christian Herald of New York to assume the place of Editor-in-Chief, which place I accepted the first of January, 1920. I have been associated with this great religious and family paper ever since and at this writing I am Contributing Editor with Dr. S. Parkes Cadman and Dr. D. A. Poling and Margaret Sangster, all of New York. My work on the Herald for five years made it necessary for me to go to New York six or seven times a year. It is thirty-six hours ride from Kansas to New York, and I often wondered why New York was so far from the center of the United States. I have asked several New York citizens but I have 260 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY never had a satisfactory answer. My associates on the Herald, Mr. Graham Patterson, the Pub- lisher, Mr. Rae D. Henkle, the Managing Editor, and Dr. Sandison, Editor Emeritus, have been the center of a new and interesting group of eastern friends. Dr. Sandison, with whom I have been closest in terms of correspondence, although nomin- ally retired, has in reality filled in many of my duties, which my absence from the office has thrown upon his kindly shoulders and into his large heart, and I wish to place this little flower on his desk that has perhaps felt the touch of more human appeal for help in times of distress than has ever been known by any other editor in this country. I wish I could mention by name all the people in Kansas to whom I owe inspiration and to whom my thought inclines as I finish this exceedingly unfinished attempt to tell what I feel. I have never been arrested for anything but once, and that was for making a U turn on Kansas Avenue in my own home town. I was absent mindedly working over an article for the Atlantic Monthly on ‘Missionary Policemen.” The traffic officer just at that moment happened to see me, although he had missed several car drivers who had made the same turn when he was not there. I think I have never paid five dollars more willingly, because I would rather be arrested in my own home town than anywhere else. If I could think of any better compliment to pay the place THE KANSAS CHAPTER 261 of my residence I would put it down on the blotter here. For I believe I can truly say that the spot where a man has been married, and where his son has been born, and where he has preached for more than a quarter of a century,—the spot where he has baptized little children, and welcomed disciples into the Communion, and performed the marriage cere- mony over two thousand times, where he has stood with families over their dead, and watched young life grow upward into gracious manhood and woman- hood, yes,—and even the place where he has been arrested, is dearer to him than any other spot, and that is my feeling towards Kansas, where the prairie wind softly blowing in the clean air on a May morn- ing brings to my open study window the perfect notes of the meadow lark, and gives me inspiration and hope for a better world. Old Chet Thomas once said of a certain town in Kansas, ‘‘God has done a good deal for this place; man very little,” referring to the wondrous beauty of the prairie landscape on which the town was built. It is my hope and prayer that the men and women of Kansas may work with God to make the’inner life of the people of this great commonwealth as beautiful.and great as he has made the outward boundary four hundred by two hundred by four thousand miles stretch of his earthly creation. CHAPTER TEN THE MINISTER’S CALLING I have been asked by many ministers to state my working creed in the ministry, and also some of the essential factors for the minister’s program. That is the reason for this confession and statement. My creed after thirty-eight years in the ministry is the same as it was after I graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1886. The only creed that has seemed to me to be workable and practical is the creed of Jesus,—Love to God and Man. The attempt to carry out that creed in everyday life has kept me so busy that I have not been inter- ested in the theological discussions over the person of Christ, the future of the heathen, the evolution of man, the exact meaning of the inspiration of the Scriptures, or the value of denominationalism. ‘To this day I know as little about the scientific theo- ries of how man came into existence as the youngest ‘school boy. All I feel certain about is that God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul. Just what happened before that, is as vague in my mind as the making of nebule of the stars or the method by which light came into the 262 THE MINISTER’S CALLING 263 darkness. I have always stood in submissive awe before those controversialists who talk about evolu- tion as if they had been eye witnesses of the event, and had taken stenographic notes of the process, and photographs of the way it was done. I retire from their dogmatic utterances as from the spectacle of superhuman workings. But when it comes to taking the sure knowledges the controversialists seem to have on all the disputed matters of science and theo- logy and translating them into concrete conduct of the human race I have never been able to distil a single drop of human kindness or love out of their little alembics and I have ceased to waste any of my time in breaking retorts and spilling acids over chemical theology. I would not dare to call myself a minister or a preacher if I had not at the beginning of my pas- torate settled some things clearly in my mind that I am able to put down as my concrete program of faith and practice in the ministry, all of it based on the one great funadmental of love to God and man. To make it clear I will state it in a number of pledges, if you choose to call them that, which I made to myself at the very first of the ministry, that to this day I believe apply in a large degree to the ministry of the present time. I said to myself: (1) I will begin my pastorate with an unques- tioning faith in Jesus Christ as the one only power in all the world to save it. This faith in Him I will 264 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY not limit to what has been known as his theological power to forgive sins and save men from hell. But I will define my Christ as the greatest Statesman and Economist of all time, and insist that legislation and education and political economy and industry look to Him as the one in all the world as holding in his teaching the redemption of the world at every point. In other words, Jesus in his statement that if men sought first the kingdom of God they would have all the other material things necessary for hu- man happiness, defined himself to be the world’s Master mind. He is good for the market place and the legislative hall and every place where humans struggle and live. It is time, I said to myself, to add the name Statesman to the word Redeemer in the preaching of Jesus. Heis not a Redeemer unless He is a Statesman, for man to be fully redeemed must be redeemed socially, and politically, and eco- nomically, as well as theologically. (2) I will, so far as lies in my power, begin my ministry by loving my people. One place where many ministers fail is in a failure to have a genuine affection for all sorts and conditions of men. If I do not really have a feeling of compassion and re- gard for every person in my parish there is some- thing fatal in my ministry. (3) I will spend much time in prayer. I will never be too busy to find time for prayer. I will pray alone and with groups of my people in their THE MINISTER’S CALLING 265 homes. Whether I can ever get many of my people to come to what is called a prayer meeting held in a church room will be of very little concern to me if I can train them to pray with me when I make my calls on them, or when they come into my study to confer with me over some church matters. And I will allow nothing to interfere with a period of prayer on Sunday morning or evening just before the preaching services. At that period I will shut the door on all other matters, and with a chosen few of the spiritually minded in my church family we will pray for the divine blessing on the message of the day. May I also say that if I were to go back into the pastorate again I would change many habits connected with prayer life. I would use the Sunday morning service often for a prayer service, because I have come to believe that in the American pulpit there is far too much preach- ing and too little praying. I would, without previous notice, on some Sundays in the morning when the church was filled with people who had heard preach- ing ever since they were born, lay my sermon aside, tell the organist not to play or the choir to sing, give out no notices, leave the morning offering to be given as the people went out, and say to the people, ‘Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath.’ Therefore let us spend this gracious hour in prayer.’ And I have faith enough to believe that if that were done spontaneously in every pulpit in America not once or 266 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY twice but often, we would be having the greatest revival in the history of the church. But we are too cowardly and too much slaves of habit and of custom to break away from it all into the region of angelic and heavenly things. The weakness of my own ministry at any point of weakness I attribute to my neglect. of prayer in the preparation of my sermons and the making of plans for the welfare of the people. (4) I will emphasize the work of the preacher as teacher instead of orator and speaker. And in doing that I will teach my children, using my own Bible School as my constant material. That meant turning the morning preaching serv- ice into a teaching period for several months in the year. It meant having the Bible School condense its time into forty minutes and then coming into the church auditorium for the eleven o'clock service. Then with all classes seated with their teachers or department superintendents, we would have an hour or more of a religious service using the stately hymns of the church, and teaching instead of preaching. The end and aim of all the services as long as they lasted being to reach decisions to live the Christian life, joining the Church, and beginning to be a disciple. Again, if I were to be given the privilege of enter- ing the active ministry again I would spend at least half my time teaching my children and young peo- THE MINISTER’S CALLING 267 ple and preaching to the grown up people only half the time. For that reason I would not try to hold a second preaching service, especially if I had only the church membership for my hearing, but I would do as I did for twenty-five years, meet groups of young men and women Sunday evenings and teach them and train them to be Christian business men, statesmen, journalists, lawyers, doctors, scientists, and missionaries. 25 or 50 or 100such young people who would be willing to spend two or three hours every Sunday evening with me being instructed in the Christian life would be a greater and more valuable audience than 1000 people brought together to be entertained or lured into the building by a musical or literary service. On thinking it over I believe if I were doing it again I would teach my children and my young people at least three fourths of the year instead of one-half. (5) I will try to do in between two Sundays the most important part of my ministry. I will ask my people to free me from formal pastoral calls, and let me use my time and strength in calling on the sick, the shut in and the afflicted. I will meet the people who are well and able to go to church and to meetings at those places, but in between the Sun- days I will ask the people to give me perfect free- dom to do those things that will result in the great- est results as I see them for the welfare of the peo- ple as a whole. If the people cannot trust me to 268 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY use my time in the best ways, they had better never have called me to be their pastor. In accordance with this plan of making the most of the days of the week, I will write very many let- ters to my men, not letters of complaint or criticism or faultfinding, but letters of commendation and of Christian cheer. I will also spend a good part of every day out of doors instead of in a close study room. (6) I will make it my business to know the Bible better than any man in my congregation. When it comes to reading books I will read only those that minister to life. There are not many such books so it happens that in the course of the years, my library is small. In fact I have always found more sermons in people than in books, unless I could find the people in the books. And as far as I have gone the books that contain material for preaching and teaching are so rare that a five-foot book shelf is not necessary. I am talking of teaching and preaching material in books. There are interesting and worth while things in many books old and new, and they are a part of the minister’s reading. But when it comes to books that really give the minister subjects for teaching the young or the old, they can be stood up within a space measured by the minister’s out- stretched arms held parallel with each other. That distance depends somewhat on the width of a min- THE MINISTER’S CALLING 269 ister’s shoulders, and each man can measure it for | himself. But the Bible contains the entire story of man’s need, of his development, of his sinning and his re- demption and his future. I have thought often in the flood of books and book sellers that have laid siege to my time and my salary that if all the books ever printed were destroyed except the Bible I would not weep over it. I would still have my teaching library. There are hundreds of men in my congre- gation who know far more than I can ever learn about law and medicine and science and business, and literature, but I will allow no one of them nor all of them together to know more about the Bible than I do, so that when I go up into my pulpit I will go with the tread of a conquerer conscious in my mind and heart that I am the superior of every person in my congregation in a knowledge of the Scriptures. May I be allowed to express my heretical views on the habit of book reading indulged in by many ministers. I think much of it is overdone and a great deal of it is a waste of time and power. There are hundreds of ministers in our churches at the present time whose sermons are nothing but diluted reviews of diluted books. The years go by and the one great source of wisdom for the preacher is neg- lected while he pays his hard won coin for books that do not nourish the heart or stimulate the mind. And when he gets his sermons out of thought that 270 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY is the thought of a writer who many times has never had a vision of spiritual life it seems to me like a tragedy to go before a congregation and call a book review a sermon, or a magazine article teaching. (7) I will take the greatest possible care of my body in order to preserve for my people and the calling to which I am called, a well governed ma- chine, not liable to break down or wear out before its usefulness is exhausted. Ministers as a class are good insurance risks, and often head the list in the actuaries’ tables, but on the other hand many of them fail in the ministry on account of failure to regard their bodies as temples of the Holy Ghost. I have found that a good horseshoe game every after- noon with a neighbor, has been worth more to me than golf or walking, and the expense is only nomi- nal. In any case the minister of all men needs to keep his body in shape, for the strain is enormous and he needs, if any man does, a physical endurance that will prevent depression, and at the same time be a constant example to his own people of Christian strength. In this connection I did not add it to my pledges as so far given under the caption of “I will,” but I have added it since, and that is, a place in the Chris- tian program in the parish for the teaching of health and healing. ‘The Christian ministry need not be — afraid to teach the healing power of God on the THE MINISTER’S CALLING 271 body through prayer. At what time in the history of the Christian life has bodily healing as a part of the church teaching been dismissed? It is still there, neglected and in some cases looked upon with fear and even disapproval. But it is a part of the Christian faith. I believe that the minister of today has as much right to pray for recovery of the sick in his parish as any minister in Paul’s time or in the early centuries of the history of the church. Again, if I were back in my parish and could select the right men and women to assist me, I would main- tain regularly a healing clinic of some sort, and make prayer and faith regnant at the center of it. (8) I will set apart a regular time and conse- crate it to the human needs of any human being in the parish for the confessional of the soul’s needs. By this I mean what I tried to carry out for many years in the establishment of a Sunday afternoon period when any one in the parish who wanted to confess his need could come to the church study and find an opportunity to give his soul’s or mind’s or body’s need the relief of telling it to the minister with the hope of receiving help before he went away. I believe one of the greatest sources of the min- ister’s inspiration and one of the greatest sources of the Protestant church power is being missed because we do not open a door of hope to the people in our parishes. The Protestant church should have a 272 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Protestant Confessional. Not a confessional where the minister stands like a priest between the soul and his divine need of forgiveness for sin, but a confessional where the minister meets the people of his parish who are in trouble of any sort and they come to him to confess their need and ask for divine and human help. Sunday afternoon I have found in many ministers’ lives is a vacant period, and in most parishioners’ lives it is the one time when they can make time for just such a meeting with the minister as I have tried to describe. What better use could be made of the whole of Sunday afternoon than a meeting, generally by previous appointment, with any one who wanted to come and unburden the spirit to one who could minister as even near and dear relatives could not do. And during many years of such min- istration in my own parish I can think of nothing in all my experience that remains with me as_source of joy of heart like those hours spent with troubled souls that came and broke down the stony walls of custom and isolation and revealed the hunger they had carried for long years in their desire to tell to another the heartache or the fear or the need that could not be told to any one but the minister. Many of these confessions were too sacred and personal to be made public. Many of them were at the time without the relief of immediate answer. But | none of them was useless, and in a host of cases the: THE MINISTER’S CALLING 273 confessional became a place of glorious light break- ing into a lifetime of terrible darkness, and those who came into the little room with fear and tremb- ling went away with smiles of hope and new faces shining through the rainbows of their tears. By all means, let us have a Protestant Confessional. Why should Protestantism be deprived of a source of power which the Catholic church has understood and used with mighty influence all these centuries? And the Protestant Confessional will commend itself to those of our faith because it does not include within the term any assumption of a priesthood standing between a soul and forgiveness of sin but rather a confessional that ought to make more possible the drawing near to the divine of the human being put- ting himself at once within the tender embrace of Him who not only holds all his children in the hollow of his hand but within the gracious bend of his arm. The program of a minister’s life would be incom- plete unless it contained in it at all times the eternal optimism of his faith. Therefore I pledged myself at the very beginning of my ministry that no matter what happened in my own local parish or any where out in the great world I would never lose my faith in the ultimate victory of the things that Jesus lived and died for. If my ministry could not carry with it always the impression of beating the devil and saving the world, I declared to myself at the very beginning I had no call to be a minister. Whatever 274 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY else I have held to or let go as the years have sped, I am glad to say I have never doubted the final victory of good over evil. If I could not preach and teach a Christ who could and would draw all men up unto himself, I had no Christ to preach worth talking about. If I ever went into my pulpit (and I confess I did more than once), to voice my doubts and fears over a world sunk in wickedness, I always went down again ashamed of a message that made my people go out with troubled hearts to face another week of temptation and struggle. So that after the first few years I came to know that a sermon that contained the note of triumph and hope and overcoming was never lost. The minister can never wear his people out with the sermon that gives them hope. He faces every time he gets up to speak, souls that are in need of courage and cheer. I hope to be forgiven by a merciful High Priest for the few times I have preached my fears. But I know he does not expect me to apologize to any one for the number of times I have repeated myself in saying the same words of the same text, “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” In summing up the program of my ministry I find myself very hopeful for the place of the church and the preacher and teacher. If I were beginning life again I do not know of any place where I would pre- fer to begin better than in the ministry. In spite of the sectarianism of the churches, in spite of the lack THE MINISTER’S CALLING 275 at present of a united program of world wide mis- sionary campaign, in spite of the absence of what may be called high grade evangelism, in spite of formalism and isolation and lack of vision of what the church stands for, I do not know anything more vital to the world’s happiness and its civilization than the church and the ministry within it. I do not believe the young man looking into the callings of life will be attracted to this great calling on ac- count of its outward rewards, or because of its social dignity and its unrivaled opportunity for study and contact with social forces. But if he hears the call and obeys it, it will be because he sees in the min- istry the one best place in all the world to put Jesus’ creed of love to God and Man to the test. If it will not stand that test, then the church had best shut up its doors and the minister begin to mix mortar or lay brick. But the Master’s creed will sometime be followed, and along that faith the minister of the future will find his ambition met in the greatest calling known to mankind, because it is the same calling that He followed, who went about teaching the good news. CHAPTER ELEVEN THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A ROMANCE BY MRS. SHELDON The old stage coach left at six-thirty in the morn- ing, and it would take three hours for me to reach my destination, a distance of eighteen miles. As I bumped along over the rough road in the uncom- fortable old coach to the little New England village at the foot of Camel’s Hump, the little village where my Grandmother, my father’s mother lived, I little knew that I was journeying to meet my future hus- band. I was also to visit other interesting relatives in this little village, on my mother’s side. One of the old Governors of Vermont, and his son, a famous senator from Vermont, were her own uncle and cousin. The Congregational church of this village was lo- cated on one of the pleasant shady streets, and as it happened, my Grandmother’s home was on one side of the church, and the Governor’s on the other side. And as I think of it now, the young minister of this church, as he went back and forth on his © work for the parish could not escape me, as he had 276 THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A ROMANCE 277 to pass one of these houses several times a day. But I am getting ahead of my story. I had made several visits before this one to my Grandmother, and one of the pleasant memories I had taken away was the remembrance of rides in company with other young people over the shady roads and steep hills around the town with the min- ister of the Congregational church behind his old pony Bly. The minister was an elderly man who loved to do nice things for people, especially young people. He liked that rather better than writing sermons. I often think today as I think of him that preaching is not much unless a little love and kindness goes with it. Upon my arrival at Grandmother’s for this visit, breakfast was waiting for me. Grandmother looked just as she always had, with her white cap, or rather her black cap, for the white one was put on later in the day. Her white apron was as spotless as ever, and she had the same appearance of calmness and dignity that she always possessed. I admired my Grandmother, she never seemed to me to work, her- self, but her housekeeping ran like clockwork, so she must have been a good executive. Grandmother always seemed so in order herself that I could never have thought of throwing myself into her arms for a good hug. I was an impetuous young girl, my brown hair was curly, and not always in perfect order, so perhaps that bond of something which 278 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY draws people together was not as strong between Grandmother and me as it might have been. Grandmother’s chief interest was her church, so it was perfectly natural for her as we were having breakfast together to make the remark that their new minister was often in the habit of dropping in on Monday morning. That was the first I knew that there was a new minister, and I was at once filled with regret that my old friend was no longer there. I had liked his wife, too, for she was always attrac- tive. She was at that time my ideal of what a min- ister’s wife should be. She was plump and smiling and had excellent taste in dress. My own minister’s wife at home was very thin and had a long face, and never had attractive clothes. I found out after- ward that she was at heart quite gay, but dared not show it for fear of shocking the congregation. Well, of course, Grandmother’s remark about the minister’s dropping in did not interest me in the /east. Now that my old friend was gone, I had no further interest in ministers any way, and none in this one in particular. At the Governor’s there was an attractive young man studying law, that I was look- ing forward to seeing. Not that I was in love with him, but like any girl I considered an attractive young man an asset to the town one is going to visit. | | After breakfast I went to take out my dresses and hang them away, and to put my little toilet THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A ROMANCE 279 articles in place in my room, so as to make myself feel at home in Grandmother’s house for the month I was to stay. Then I went down to the living room where the long mirror hung on one side of the room and the big square piano stood on the other side. The black haircloth sofa was in the same place where it had stood for years, and not far away the old-fashioned rocker by the side of a little stand on _ which the old Bible always lay. I can see my Grand- mother now seated by that table reading her Bible. When I came down to the living room Grand- mother was sitting there and as I came in she began at once talking about the minister. ‘‘We like him very much,” she said, and added hastily, ‘But he has been very careful since he came in regard to showing any attentions to the young women in the church, so you must not feel hurt if he does not show YOU any attention.” “Grandmother!” I cried, ‘What do you mean? I do not want attention from a minister!” “But he is young,” said Grandmother, “And we think him very nice. We think he acts very wisely in regard to young women. You know in time they might make him a great deal of trouble if he were not careful.” ‘Well, Grandmother, do not worry about me, I am not interested,” I said, just as a peal from the front door bell rang through the house. It was true I was not interested. Grandmother had drawn, to 280 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY my young mind, the picture of a very conceited young man, expecting every girl to fall in love with him. I knew the ringing of that front door bell announced the arrival of someone. I had the desire to run, fly, anything to avoid the risk of meeting what I imagined to be a solemn, pale-faced minister. And if Grandmother had been like some women, I should have done so. But as she said in her dignified way, “T think he has come,” I could see no way of escape, and in a moment was looking into the face of a smiling young man with the figure of an athlete. I looked him over. Dark hair, blue eyes, good chin, firm and strong, rather awkward, smile a pleasant one. He seemed perfectly natural with Grand- mother, but I noticed he did not seem at ease with me, and I did not help him in the way of conver- sation, meekly listening to his chat concerning affairs of the church Grandmother was interested in, the tennis match he was to play with some one (I learned afterwards he was a champion at tennis). ‘The sub- ject of baked beans was introduced. It seems Grand- mother was in the habit of having him as a guest once a week when she served the real Boston kind, and he was evidently anticipating the event. I could see from his conversation that the advent of a young woman in the house was in no way to interfere in © his mind with this weekly feast of his favorite dish. As I noticed this trait of determination I looked again at his black hair and blue eyes, and said to MARY ABBY MERRIAM (MRS. CHARLES M. SHELDON) MERRIAM WARD SHELDON THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A ROMANCE 281 myself, “Irish! Probably Scotch-Irish!” And I guessed right. Born in New York state but with Scotch-Irish ancestry on both sides. I do not know how long that call lasted. Years, as I think of it now. He seemed to bring all his worries and troubles to be ironed out by Grandmother. I recall his story of woe regarding his tennis. In company with two law students (one of them I have referred to as liv- ing at the Governor’s), he had been in the habit of playing tennis late in the afternoon almost every day. An old deacon in the church had severely taken him to task for this, saying it was not a Christian thing for a minister to play tennis. I fear I gave him a sympathetic look at this point in the conversation, without meaning to, for he seemed for a moment to be considering a polite remark directed to me, but thought better of it and hastily began discussing the advisability of keeping or selling pony Bly. Old pony Bly had been presented to him by the former minister, my old friend. It was not as generous an act, however, as at first it might seem, for she was too old to sell, she had that nervous disease, spring- halt, which made driving behind her somewhat nerve- racking, and she had a good appetite which made her a somewhat expensive luxury, for a young man on a salary of eight hundred. But the hills were long and stony and steep, leading to the rural mem- bership of the church, where he was expected to make frequent calls. 282 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY I do not recall that Grandmother gave him very satisfactory advice, but her attentive and sympa- thetic ear seemed to give him the comfort he needed. I could see why he came to call on her Monday morning. Her advice and sympathy started him on the week’s work in the right state of mind, and as the days went on, I saw a good deal of him as his visits to Grandmother were very frequent. He wanted the village to have a Library. He wanted it to have a street sprinkler. He wanted it to have a hearse. At his last funeral the casket had slipped off the wagon going up a steep hill. That seemed to get on his nerves a bit. So he was trying to get money for all these things and spending his own as freely as if he were a millionaire. I remember when evening came this first day of my visit, Grandmother referred again to pony Bly. ‘Although our minister has a horse and buggy,” (no one in that little town ever said ‘carriage’) “he has never taken a young lady out to ride. He is very careful to avoid gossip.” I could see the trend of Grandmother’s remarks to warn me not to accept any such attentions from him. I know her intentions were the best in the world. But, Grandmother dear, long since laid to rest, I wonder how far you may be responsible for what followed a few years later. This I know,— the young minister was invited by Grandmother to THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A ROMANCE 32832 her house many times during my visit, and what was my surprise one afternoon to be invited by him to drive with him behind pony Bly in the “buggy” which Grandmother had pronounced free from vil- lage gossip. The days between my first introduction and this daring invitation were filled with all kinds of social events with the young people of the town. It wasa nice little town with many cultured people who gave it an atmosphere far above that of many other small places. Reading Clubs and musical programs fur- nished our entertainments for many an evening. Grandmother was always on guard for her minister. She gave me many a serious talk on the sin of leading a young man on, to break his heart in the end. I think she put him on a pedestal and was only willing that we should occasionally take a look at him, being careful at the same time not to make eyes at him. Since that time I have seen the wisdom in the atti- tude the young minister took toward the social side of his life. For there were very attractive young women perfectly willing to lead him on to a more intimate friendship if he so desired. One of these girls was my best friend, beautiful and good, and would have made a lovely minister’s wife. I have often wondered why he did not see it. One evening after hearing the story of his life as a boy on a lonely Dakota ranch where every thing was hard, and where the thing one wanted must be 284 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY put out of mind, and just the necessities indulged in, I could see where that strength of will to keep free from what desires he might have had for compan- ionship among them had been acquired. He evi- dently was not going to have it said that he had broken any girl’s heart, and he was going to keep his own intact. Something, he told himself he must wait for, as he had waited for things on the ranch. Eight hundred dollars was not enough to permit even a thought in that direction, especially when much of it was being spent on village improvements. Grandmother had been giving a party for me one evening. The young minister was there, and as he had not brought a young lady with him, he had no one to take home, so he lingered after the others had left to congratulate Grandmother over the suc- cess of her party, and what was my surprise upon her leaving the room, to have him say, “I should like to have you take a drive with me if you would enjoy to.” “But,” I said, “I understand you have never taken a young lady for a drive. It is against your prin- ciples.” “Yes,” he said, “That is very true. But then you see, I had not met you, and you are from out of town, you know.” | What would Grandmother say? I turned it over in my mind. I should feel guilty to be the one to ruin his reputation by accepting his invitation, but THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A ROMANCE 285 some evil spirit made me say quickly, “Yes, thank you, [ll go.” To this day I remember how Grand- mother looked when I told her. “I fear,” she said, ‘he has been unwise.” Well, if it was an evil spirit that prompted me to go, it went along too, and tortured me all the way. Here I was driving down the main street with the young minister who had never taken into his buggy to sit by his side any young lady in the whole two years he had lived and worked among his people. Now I was shamelessly sitting there, and pony Bly was heartlessly kicking the dashboard with her springhalt foot, calling attention to our drive. But the guilty look I expected on the minister’s face was not there. I seemed to feel that the burden of it all rested on me. It was a wretched drive for me, but I tried to hide my feelings by being specially gay. ‘“T have enjoyed this immensely, and I hope you will go with me again,” he said, as he left me at Grandmother’s door. [I little thought as I thanked that young minister for taking me on that awful buggy ride that one day I should be crossing oceans by his side, on our way to far off lands and really enjoying it too. Grandmother never knew about that. For the rest of my visit, which had nearly come to an end, I was an object of great interest in the village, to be gazed at in church and everywhere by “286 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY people who had not up to this time heard of me. For in a small town news travels fast, and the word had been spread abroad that I had been asked to ride in the minister’s buggy behind pony Bly, and that we had driven through the town and out into the country. As I said in the beginning of my story it took three hours for the old stage coach to take me from Grandmother’s house back to my own home. My visit was over and I was now on my way, bouncing along over the rough hilly roads. I had said good- bye to the young minister, never expecting to see him again. J had declined taking the second drive with him, my courage failed me at the thought of it. Grandmother said she thought it was best I had not encouraged him, as she feared I was not serious enough to make a minister’s wife. I respected my Grandmother, but I could not help exclaiming, ‘““Grandmother, he has seen too much that is serious, and won’t be looking for that when he looks for a wife. But I would not marry a minister if he were the only man left in the world!” I feared from the look Grandmother gave me that I was never to be the same to her again. I did all I could to make friends by putting my arms around her and telling her it wasn’t so much the minister, but the awful people who criticised min- isters and their wives. Then I told her how I had suffered driving down Main Street in that buggy. THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A ROMANCE 287 That was the last time I saw my Grandmother. I wish I had known before, that she liked to have me put my arms around her and let her know what was in my heart. We might have been nearer each other if I had not been so afraid of her cap and apron, and if she had understood that I was young. As the old coach rattled along I had nothing to do but think of the past month. I thought of the young lawyer, who one day when I was sitting at the piano, had come up behind me and kissed my cheek. I thought I should be afraid to trust him. I thought of the rich young man of the town who had showered some attentions upon me, but he was short, and I did not like short men. I thought of the girl friends who had not been quite so friendly since my ride in the buggy, and that made me think of the minister. Yes, he had been very nice, I hadn’t anything against him. He would probably take some other girl out in the buggy some day. Yes, he was Scotch- Irish, and if he wanted a wife who was not serious he would have her, of course, that is, if he could get her. I liked his chin. He was a very strong young man, but he was very gentle with Grandmother. He will never save his money. He is really very impractical. Well, I’m glad I met him. Where was I? Inthe buggy? Oh, I remember; in the old stage coach, and it had stopped to let a passenger off who had been riding on top. Now 288 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY we were stopping at our gate. Mother dear was picking flowers in the yard. Then father came out and took my satchel up to the door for me. ‘Did you like their new min- ister?” father said, looking straight at me. ‘“‘Not much, father,’ I said, and as I said it I noticed a relieved look on father’s face. Father had already selected a young business man in our village as a son-in-law and as a husband for his only daughter. I did not realize then that the young minister was to cross my path scon again. But he was Scotch-Irish and if he wanted a wife he was going to have one,—that is, if he could get her. CHAPTER TWELVE TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH (This chapter on ‘““Two Old Friends” is included in this edition because so many of the author’s friends who heard it read, and afterwards saw it published in the Christian Herald asked for it in the book publication. ) Next to the word “Love” the word ‘Friend’ stands resplendent in human experience. Ina world of sordid and self-seeking ambitions, it is a source of mighty satisfaction to know that there is one thing that cannot be bought with money nor won by power. Friendship mocks at the gift of gold and walks calmly by the throne of earthly ambition. It is the one priceless boon which mortals have received from the treasury of the Almighty. It isnot of this personal human friendship, how- ever, that I am going to speak, but of Two Old Friends who have always been considered by the majority of mankind as enemies to be feared and hated and fought off as long as possible. And the names of these two old friends are Old Age and Death. 289 290 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY Say what we will to others or to ourselves as we whistle to keep up our courage walking past the graveyard of Youth, we do not like this plan of life which leaves us about where we began, “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” But taking all this at its worst and in the face of the experience of mankind which is against any such determination, I have made up my mind to regard Old Age as a friend, and cultivate him with cheerful and fearless equanimity. I may not always be able to keep up the appearance before him that I would wish, but it will not be for lack of an honest attempt to doso. And in order to dismiss most of the dread of him that the majority of mankind feel, I have mapped out the following program for myself, which I trust may secure for my heart and mind some resources that even Youth itself could not give me. The physical let-down that goes with approaching old age is one of the factors that makes it dreadful to multitudes. I, therefore, am determined to keep the bodily machine in good working order as long as possible. I do not know of any miracle that will preserve my hearing or my eyesight or digestion from gradual loss of power, but I do know that cer- tain habits over which I have some control will tend to physical pleasure and power, especially in the mat- ters of exercise, diet and work. After trying tennis and finding it too strenuous; TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 91 golf, and finding it too financial; walking and finding it too solitary; riding and finding it too risky, I have at last settled on horseshoes, and find it a noble game, even as the horse itself is a noble animal. Any one who has fifty feet of backyard and five dol- lars can start the game. He needs the fifty feet to lay out a forty-foot course, and five dollars to buy four standard shoes, for of course, horseshoes can- not be played alone to the best advantage. It takes a neighbor, or three of them, to make the game in- teresting, and beats every other form of social con- tact with a man’s neighborhood. The game is classic and calls for skill of a high-brow order. Any man who can throw two pounds and a half of iron forty feet and make ringers every other throw is entitled to be a descendant of a Greek king, for the old Greek discus is the father of the horseshoe, and the discus was thrown by kings, and they used to get so excited over the game that they forgot their crowns in contending for the laurel wreath, which was the winner’s only reward. A good deal is said about a man’s diet as he grows older. Very fortunately I have been blest all my life with a digestion that has never had to weigh calories. But I am beginning to find out that the less I eat of anything, even of the things I like, the better I feel and the more I cando. And here again if I am going to keep the machine going in good order I hope to have sense enough not to eat myself 292 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY under the table. I find that almost a vegetable and fruit diet is the best for my well-being, and the meat packers could all go out of business without disturbing my menu. The only thing in this connection that I fear is the banquet. It is a deadly animal to be avoided as much as possible. When it is unavoidable I take refuge in stirring up the thing called a “‘compote,” and when I get home drink a glass of milk, eat an apple, try to forget the old, old stories the speakers told, and go to bed and to sleep. In the matter of work I reckon on staving off Old Age or of welcoming his advances by keeping my mind busy with a variety of work. One of the com- monest habits of old age is to accept a monotony of program, and one of the reasons why many men and women lose their interest in life and grow old before they get old is because they have never cultivated a habit of being interested in everything that belongs to the life of man on the earth. If I get tired of writing editorials or admonishing the sinner of the error of his ways, it is a relief to me, and perhaps to him, if I get up from my desk and study a marine coral or go out into my backyard and saw wood for my study hearth or fix the furnace or write something for the Youth’s Companion which has nothing to do with reforming the uni- verse, or take up a course of study in the near-by college on Chinese music. TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 293 Whatever it may be that keeps my mind and body interested in using a set of new or unused muscles or thoughts is helpful in the program of making Old Age a Friend. It is not possible to avoid him, but it may be possible to forget him by being pre- occupied with an endless variety of occupations. We now come to a feature of Old Age which may perhaps best be described by using the doubtful word, indifference. If that is not just the right word, try some of these: Irresponsibility. Let- ting go. Standing back. ‘The right to repose. And all of these words and phrases need to be explained, but the explanation is easy, even if the application is not accepted by a majority of those for whom it is made. But stated somewhat clumsily what I mean is simply the right which Old Age gives to his friend of letting youth have its turn at the oar or the wheel or the lever or whatever it is that makes the old universe go straight. To try it again, I begin to find that it is perfectly proper for a man after he has reached a certain period to feel perfectly easy in his soul if he is not always down at the town hall in the interest of social welfare. And the time comes when to my mind a man is perfectly justified in resigning from commit- tees and societies and programs and settling down into his easy chair when night comes with his fa- vorite author, while youth, enthusiastic, rash, fiery, optimistic, political, grandiloquent, ‘‘enchanted” 294 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY youth as Hugh Walpole calls him, takes the world in hand to wallop it or to caress it, while I sit at home and lose no time in envy or regret, because some- one else is on the Board of Managers where I used to sit and make motions and think the whole blamed thing would go to the Soviet if I were not there to steer it from the front seat and the back. I do not like the idea of Youth shoving me off the bench where I have been sitting so long, and in order to keep from being shoved, I think it is more dignified and pleasant to get up quietly as I see him coming, and walk majestically away, giving him the impression that I am going because I have a more important engagement elsewhere. I have known some old men to have many unpleasant experiences because they did not know that their time was up. “Listen to me,’’ says Old Age, bluntly. “You have had your day. Why hang around where you are not needed or at least wanted? You ought to be thankful to be called on occasionally now and then to say grace or pronounce the Benediction, but some one else has been chosen to give the speech of the evening. You have had your turn. Let up. Or, in other words, let down. Relax. Enjoy leisure. How is Youth to have any room with your old hulk blocking up the gangway. Move on, or up, or out, or down, or away—anything but staying where you used to be. It is Youth’s turn. Don’t begrudge it but be glad to catch your breath for a little before TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 295 you draw it again in the land where youth is eternal.” Good advice I say. Old Age, you said a brain full. The delight of watching Youth tackle the same problems that we sweat over belongs to the onlooker. And if I have sense enough to know that I am entitled to a seat on the bleachers where now and then I may shy something at the Umpire, it will smooth the reposeful years as they come on, free from anxiety or responsibility, and no longer under the pressure of that old obligation that Hamlet voiced when he cried out: ‘The time is out of joint, O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!” Youth, it is your innings! Go to it, and beat the old "un, if you can! And now that we are on the subject of youth there is another determination I have made and that is not to aggravate Old Age and make an enemy of him by finding fault with the rising generation. The rising generation is what the setting generation has made it. If there are youthful flappers it is because there have been aged floppers. Parents who flopped over the question of parental discipline and flopped again over needful lessons on reverence and simplic- ity and clean pleasures. And then, after getting the 296 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY world involved in bloody murder called war, we old folks, to save our precious skins, send the young ones to the front to die for our blunders. On which account I find myself in favor, the next time we old ones have provoked a war, of passing a law to send every man between thirty and seventy-five to the front to be shot, and let the young folks who have had nothing to do with making the war, all under thirty, stay at home, and decorate the town for their fathers and older brothers and granddads when those who have not been killed come home to the bosom of their children and grandchildren. I make myself a solemn vow that I will not make my declining years sour and disagreeable by always harking back to the good old days when young peo- ple were reverent, considerate, polite, gentlemanly, ladylike, sensible, religious, and obedient. When- ever we old people talk like that we have forgotten the number of times our respected parents took us out into the woodshed or over their knees in an earnest attempt to pound some sort of decency into our own depraved youthful natures. In taking account of some of the special pleasures and privileges of Old Age that make him a friend, we surely can not pass by the delights of books. Of course, young folks read books, but most of them read them either for the pleasure of the story or because they have to study them. Old folks read books in a different fashion. There is, or there TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 297 should be, a feeling of personal friendship between an old man and his books that younger folks know nothing about. As the years go by he has learned to distinguish between the books that are worth while, and the sort that are so depraved that they are called cellars. Capital letter C. There is a fine sifting out of titles and authors, and the reliable and the classic and the enduring sort of arrange themselves on his shelves in the proper order, and he loves them as if they were indeed alive, and as he takes them down for an evening or a stormy after- noon he pats them gently and affectionately, as a lover of a horse pats neck or side. Of course, no one needs to be told that any man who loves a horse at some time or other pats it. Whoever heard of a man patting an automobile? His inclination is oftener to take a club to it. In the same way no young person ever feels like patting a book caress- ingly. His only motive is to get through the story as soon as possible so as to get into another. But it is different with the man who has been reading books all his life. Within a select and limited range he ought to be able to cull out his two- foot shelf of worth-whiles, and be able to tell with- out the help of an expert book reviewer whether any of the books of today will be worth reading to- morrow. As for that matter, even if no more books were ever published, the old man (always of course, we are talking about a real lover of books) knows 298 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY there are enough of the old friends with whom he is already on more than a speaking acquaintance. No book is worth reading once that is not worth reading twice. And most books that are worth read- ing at all ought to be worth reading once every year. I can think of hardly any more pleasing picture than the picture I saw once in the National Art Gallery in London of an old man sitting on a broad window- seat in a library with his back against a broad cushion reading a book with a red cover. Outside the window, in a blooming garden two lovers could be seen sitting by a fountain. But the look on their faces was not so ecstatic and withdrawn from all worldly affairs as the look which the artist had painted on the old man’s face as he read. That painter understood his business. I feel sure he had been in the garden and also in the window seat. And he was looking back on his own youth and giv- ing age the best of it. But after all else has been said the greatest factor in making Old Age a friend is friendship. I am inclined to believe that somewhere at this point more old people lose the joy of life than at any other. It is so easy to drop friends out of one’s life. There were two or three members of your college class (you remember?) with whom you corresponded for - a number of years, and then the demands of busi- ness and the entrance of new friends and the pursuit of trouble under the disguise of happiness caused TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 299 you to discontinue the acquaintance, renewed fitfully as the years passed, and now and then you received a newspaper clipping that Brown had died, or Jones had gone to Congress, or Robinson had struck oil and could be found listed in Who’s Who. If a col- lege man, after the lapse of ten years, has one col- lege classmate with whom he keeps up a letter a year and from whom because his friendship will bear the strain when he goes to New York, he dares borrow fifty dollars to pay his fare home, it is at least the average continuance of college friendships. That might be passed over without too search- ing criticism of ourselves if we did not also fall into the mistake of neglecting the later friendships, made in middle life. For there is nothing quite so deso- late as the picture I sometimes have of some old people in my old parish who, when night comes, sit solitary behind the closed door waiting pitifully for a friendly push of the electric bell from the friends who seldom come, because they were not cultivated in the garden of yesterday. There is something deeply sorrowful in the’ way multitudes of otherwise good people fail to pro- vide for the delights of Old Age by laying up for themselves the riches of friendship. They have been too busy, they have not considered its value, _they have not thought they would ever need it, and when night comes they sit alone waiting for the footstep and the cheering voice that seldom come. 300 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY The friendships of Old Age should be more satis- fying and peace-giving than the fervid emotional sentiments of younger minds and hearts. It is pos- sible of course in the hurly-burly of the average life of man in business or profession to win and hold friends that are satisfying and enduring. But after all, Old Age has the advantage of the years of test- ing, sifting and comparing. Out of the multitude of people the average man knows in the course of sixty or seventy years there will be culled out a small but delightful number, generally of those who have grown old together with him, of those who have found one another out to the extent that they are not afraid to bid them come in. And these are the choice few who, in the canny Scotch phrase, are bid to come “‘far ben.’’ Clear in to the fireside. There are no lonesome hearthstones for those who have been wise enough to look ahead to the time when riches, honors, office, fame, take on their proper value and friends are welcomed in to take the places once given to ambition and love of applause, and worldly success. The Master was a young man. But He spoke the rich experience of the Man of the ages when one day he said to His disciples, ‘‘No longer do I call you servants, but friends.” Something of that same peaceful sense of compen- © sation for earth’s losses and disappointments the old people of the world can feel, if as evening comes on, true and tried friends come ‘‘far ben’? and the TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 301 dreadful lonesomeness of neglected and forgotten old age is not a part of the fact of advancing years. There has nothing been said so far as to what makes people old or what the boundary line is. Most certainly the line is not measured by the addi- tion of days into years. There does not appear to be any standard by which to decide the matter of old age. It is an in- dividual matter. Some men give you the impres- sion of old age by their slovenly dress or their slo- venly talk or their shuffling gait, or the absence of enthusiasm. | I wonder sometimes what test we might apply to discover when we pass over the line that separates youth from age. I have thought at times it might be when we met children and they never smiled at us because we never smiled at them, or perhaps it was some morning, when we forgot to say our prayers, or when we lost our ideals of virtue and spirituality. But whenever or wherever that line may be crossed it is to my mind not a line to be stepped over care- lessly as if it did not matter, and it will not be all the same 100 years from now. But the imperative fact of Old Age whenever it becomes a fact to us need not dismay us nor sadden us. For its compensations are many, as many, [ am inclined to believe, as the disappointments of youth. To speak of Death as an old friend is to contra- 302 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY dict the ordinary and universal thought of that event. Death in human experience has always been described as an enemy, as dreadful, awful, fear- ful, and something to be shunned at almost any cost. And yet it is altogether possible that Death may be another friend like Old Age. I am not trying to argue about it or preach a stereotyped homily on it, but simply to jot down a few thoughts that have been accumulating in my mind, and whether they are worth anything or not they will harm no one, and I may get some measure of mental satis- faction in trying to express them. There have been only two definitions of Death that are worth considering. One is that Death is the end of an old experience. The other is that it is the beginning of a new experience. I need not pause to state my own definition, without argument, to be the latter. And if that is a fact then it is the su- preme adventure of humanity, but an adventure to be faced with serenity, because it will be free from pain and accident and loss. The universal fear of Death may be due to the dread of the unknown, quite as much as to the love of life. But suppose we do know something posi- tive about it. That knowledge ought to go a long ways toward dispelling the fear. If we say, there- fore, that Death is the beginning of a new experi- ence, free from pain, disease, poverty, ugliness fail- ure, hate, ill-will and disappointment, then we are TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 303 not exaggerating when we call Death an Old Friend. And it is on the assumption that the existence into which the event of Death ushers me is all that is defined in a new experience that everything now to be said about Death is based. If there is no new experience revealed by Death there is nothing more to be said. If there is a positive new experience revealed by Death, language fails to describe its tremendous reach of wonder, beauty, and of happi- ness. One reason for the universal fear of death lies in the common avoidance of the subject. We do not talk about Death except with solemn vocabulary and with apologies for lugging it in. We might accustom ourselves to its inevitable place in our lives if we did not avoid getting acquainted with his character. We have invested Death with the trap- pings of woe, with skull and cross-bones and we put a white mask on him and reduce his dignity to a scarecrow figure prowling around in the dark to grab us with his bony fingers. One of the most fearful conceptions of death that has been accepted by art is to be found in West- minster Abbey in the tomb of the young girl who died in her youth. Ravaillac, the sculptor, has carved a grinning skeleton, his skull and one bony arm em- erging from a tomb and in the skeleton fingers he aims a dart at the figure of the maiden, who is fainting with fear in the arms of her mother above. 304 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS LIFE STORY If any one says that the facts of death bear out the ghastly picture of him then all any one can say is that such a picture does not take account of anything except the one brief physical moment of the change from an old to a new experience, and does not look one inch beyond the momentary change from the physical to the spiritual. Most of us, I take it, have had more or less cur- losity concerning what will actually happen to us when we die. That curiosity has led to the forma- tion of societies of Psychical Research, to Spiritual- ism and Theosophy and even scientific attempts, so- called, to communicate with the other world. But even granting everything that the most enthusiastic believers in such attempts have claimed the entire body of real results summed up does not shed one ray of useful knowledge on the other world. The London Society for Psychical Research has published 20 big volumes since 1882, and the most that the leaders in the Society will admit is the exist- ence of telepathy and the belief that apparitions are not due to chance alone. All that is such a pitiful lack of knowledge that it is not worth even this brief and passing mention. And I mention it only to call attention to the fact that in trying to picture the details of a new ex- perience which death will usher us into, we are obliged to base them all on the general fact of an existence of personal consciousness in surroundings FORTY YEAR MAN. CLASS OF 1886. DEGREE D.D. BY BROWN UNIVERSITY, 1924. TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 305 that are ideal, but capable of expression’ only in terms such as we have known in the life we have lived in the body. I think it is fairly within the province of the imagination to picture some of the things that will be possible in the other world; not because they have been described by a medium, but because they may be within the scope of our own natures. If anything now said may seem to be unreal or even absurd it will not be due, I hope, to the impossibility of them but to the impossibility of describing what one feels, in the language we are obliged to use. Taking for granted that Death itself is no more than a momentary signal to mankind that the new experience has begun I have what is almost like a sense of positive knowledge that the first thing I will experience will be a delightful freedom from the exactions of time. ‘There will be no minutes, hours, days, months and years in this new experience. There will be simply a feeling of supreme existence, living at the height of growing power. Not a com- pletion of anything but a growing appreciation of what it is all about. If I push my imagination a step farther I find that what seems the next most natural and easy thing to picture is the real and vivid meeting with those I have loved and liked in this life. I haven’t the slightest picture in my mind as to how that will take place in the details, but there does not seem to 806 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS |jLIFE STORY be the slightest hesitation in my mind that the meet- ing itself will be at the very beginning of my new experience and that it will be absolutely satisfying to every part of my being. We are, of-course, all of us so born into condi- tions of time and boundary that it is impossible for us to think of any existence which does not carry with it a sense of place. And if the readers of this paper will let their minds expel old and fixed com- mentaries on religious expressions, and entertain the words of Jesus as an attempt to convey a tremendous fact about the future to humanity that hungered for it, what He said once about preparing a “‘place”’ for those who had ended the earthly life has a very stupendous meaning. For the dread of being “ prisoned in the viewless winds, and blown with rest- less violence round about the pendent world” is not a thought that makes death a friend. Rather it invests him with grisly terror. But to be quite cer- tain that we shall continue to have an abiding place, and that place undisfigured by any ugliness or fail- ure of perfection is to make death take on another aspect quite different from the accepted ah univer- sal thought of him. For years I have wondered within myself, sel- dom venturing to talk about it to any one else, what - I would have to do in the other world. If I elimin- ate eating, sleeping, reading, writing, making money and losing it, going to church, moving pictures, lec- TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 307 tures, conventions, and political gatherings, and a hundred other things that engage my daily energy here in the body, what will there be for me to do to take up the time called eternity? It sounds ridiculous, but if the thing is going to be a reality, it is not ridiculous; it is tremendously tragic if we have no answer to give to our own wonder. I believe a satisfactory answer can be - given to a part of the question as to the way a part of eternity can and will be spent, and that is in meeting the personalities that have been a part of the earthly history. For it does not seem at all grotesque or impossible that Death will usher us into the most interesting and delightful companion- ship with the world’s worthy souls, all those who have so lived that such companionship will be con- genial and necessary. I find myself dwelling at times with a degree of excited anticipation on the wonderful meetings I shall have with Lincoln, and Gladstone, and Flor- ence Nightingale, and Phillips Brooks, and Henry Ward Beecher, and John Wesley, and John Knox, and Browning, and Tennyson, and Whittier, and Socrates, and Thomas A Kempis, and Augustine, and Moses, and Peter, and John, and Paul, and the countless number of saints who suffered martyrdom for their faith, and the host of those who are worth knowing because they have lived worthily. I am taking for granted that there is no aristoc- 308 CHARLES M. SHELDON: HIS UIFE STORY racy in the other world which will prevent the humblest soul from the highest friendship with the high and mighty of earth. With our small and bounded conceptions of time we are unable to con- ceive the possibility of ever wearing out this method of spending eternity. J once was somewhat worried over the problem as to how eternity was going to be taken care of, but my mind finds a real satisfaction in the companionships of the spirit. In this world we do not have time enough to know our few friends as we would like. In the other world with no time to count, and with a companionship num- bered by countless millions, eternity will not be a bit too long in which to enjoy it. I suppose there will also be some service of some sort to render. ‘There is a phrase in the good old Book which says, ‘And his servants shall do him service.” It does not say what, and we wish it had. But if there is service to be given that is another reason why Death may be an old friend. If Old Age finds any of us broken down in body and mind, ambition departed, desire a thing of the past, the home desolated, a new generation present that is restless because we still linger, then certainly we can not define Death as anything less than a friend to be welcomed. And to multitudes of old - folks this is a fact. But if Old Age shall be a mellow and gracious ripening rather than a rotting, even then Death shall not be a terror, but an an- TWO OLD FRIENDS: OLD AGE AND DEATH 4809 ticipation of a new experience that shall be free from the disappointments and distresses of the earthly existence and the promise of an astonishing future. In the last paragraph of Dr. Lyman Abbott’s ‘‘Reminiscences,”’ there is an expression so fitting for the conclusion of what I have said so awkwardly that I would like to quote it as expressing the same feeling on the part of all of us, I trust, who in the evening of life are expecting morning to follow night. It comes with peculiar appropriateness pre- ceding as it does, only a short time before he put forth to sea: D’Envoi “T look forward to the Great Adventure which now can not be far off with awe but not with appre- hension. I enjoy my work, my home, my friends, my life. I shall be sorry to part with them. But always I have stood in the bow looking forward with hopeful anticipation to the life before me. When the time comes for my embarkation and the ropes are cast off and I put out to sea, I think I shall still be standing in the bow and still looking forward with eager curiosity and glad hopefulness to the new world to which the unknown voyage will bring me.” “ i ! aa ai " Ww a ae } é ay ry . ey) J PrN i \ LA vette | SUD A Aca (i ; Ne Ay fi ue ian i Pro aMr he ' - : f st Ps yk Pls ] 7 7 q | Niches! Anes Pata Aad cha a eH. MS My % Ca a As Ni : in : | i 1. ‘ | URC. tag ' re { » bd , ‘ ? ’ AY = Va Cease aay ty : ll od ies 7 “5 , . or! ‘ dal Pe he (he > ‘4 ees ‘ i ; 4 Ae : ) ' Pa , 5 M Cie aay { a i ‘ di a4) #4 aan ae 2) ‘ < *, t b Ki . J 7 eu fe! : ie SY } BA f y gh Dds PP yy | ras ine fi 7.) eee eds Sr) fine rae ee. wan Hy un hs A ‘ i A Oo ye a? 4 i j has Date Due Heh vy ais mt oc) wae My Tate AY hy i i a ae! ye SALE iy fh : ev ’ s ua i a e ys Se imighyos Sg Sey. = ea pai Cae sd " nh iil aie 4 Me WA eu ee a hy v Ny ia cay a bien A ‘Ss ‘ wi 2