ABOUT THIS BOOK
(56 chapters, 61,000 words)
This new edition of a classic story contains Charles Sheldon's original writing, with some passages sensitively abridged to allow his powerful story to come through for modern readers. Nothing in the storyline has been changed.
A homeless man staggers into a wealthy church and upsets the congregation. A week later he is dead. This causes the Rev. Henry Maxwell to issue a startling challenge to his congregation and to himself -- whatever you do in life over the next twelve months, ask yourself this question before making any decision: "What would Jesus do?"
The local newspaper editor, a novelist, a wealthy young woman who has inherited a million dollars, her friend who has been offered a professional singing career, the superintendent of the railroad workshops, a leading city merchant and others take up the challenge. But how will it all work out when things don't go as expected?
A bishop gives up his comfortable lifestyle -- and finds his life threatened in the city slums. The story is timeless. A great read, and a challenge to every Christian today.
In His Steps
Charles M. Sheldon
First published 1896
This Abridged Edition ©2015 Chris Wright
E-BOOK ISBN: 978-0-9927642-9-6
Also available as e-books from
White Tree Publishing
are these abridged editions of
three Classic Romances by Mrs. O. F. Walton
(see end of this e-book)
The Lost Clue ISBN: 978-0-9932760-2-6
Was I Right? ISBN: 978-0-9932760-1-9
Doctor Forester ISBN: 978-0-9932760-0-2
Paperback editions of all four books
are available from
www.lighthousechristianpublishing.com
and from most internet book sellers
This book is a work of fiction. Named locations are used fictitiously, and characters and incidents are the product of the original author's imagination. The names of places and people are from the original work. Any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
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Introduction
CHARLES MONROE SHELDON wrote In His Steps in the summer of 1896. It was one of several of his stories that he read aloud in the evening services in the Central Congregational Church in Topeka, Kansas, where he was the church's first minister. His plan was to leave his stories on a cliffhanger, to make sure the congregation returned the following Sunday! In His Steps was written partly from Sheldon's own experience. In order to try to understand the difficulties of men who were out of work, he sometimes disguised himself as an unemployed worker or tramp, walking around the district "seeking work." He was appalled by the indifference he was shown.
In His Steps was published in installments in the Chicago Advance magazine, and in November 1897 it was published as a book. The magazine publishers failed to register the copyright correctly. If they had, the book might have made Charles Sheldon a fortune, or it might have faded into obscurity, as did his other books. Although we can question the ethics of many publishers who immediately published the story without payment (the whole book was printed and sold in the States for a few cents, and in England in a paper cover for just one penny a copy), the outcome was a book that sold in vast quantities around the world. To date, it is estimated that over 30 million copies have been sold in book and magazine form. It was a story that challenged Christian thinking at the time, and still does so today in reprints and in original copies found in used book stores.
Although there are readers who enjoy old books for their wordy descriptions and dialog, many now find them too drawn out for easy reading. This abridged edition is not a retelling or rewording. It contains Charles Sheldon's original writing, but with words, sentences and even whole paragraphs sensitively cut. This allows the powerful story to come through in a memorable way.
Right to the core, this story is Charles Sheldon's work. Nothing in the storyline has been altered in its meaning, or modernized, although the occasional word has been replaced where its meaning has changed over the years and would e misleading. The use of first names, as an alternative to titles such as Mister and Miss, vary slightly between the very earliest editions. So although men here generally address each other by their surnames, as was the convention of the period, I have occasionally used the first name instead of the title in the narrative, in keeping with some of the early editions. It should also be noted that chapter divisions in this abridged book are not from the original.
The use of the word "audience" rather than "congregation" to describe the people in Henry Maxwell's church on Sunday is interesting, and may be intended to convey the nature of the services at the time the story starts, where people seem to be going to church to be entertained by the singers and the remarkable delivery of the minister's sermon, rather than being there to worship.
The tenements described here are not what we might think of today as rundown apartment blocks. They were the worst slums imaginable that existed in American, British and European cities at the time. This is not a story that can be modernized or updated in its telling. It belongs firmly in the end of the nineteenth century, in the way that people react with each other and live their live
s. The problems of extreme squalor and unemployment were compounded by the ready availability of cheap, unsafe alcohol that destroyed many families. Contaminated food containing dangerous additives and impurities was also a scandal in inner cities.
Nowadays, thanks to the reforming movements similar to the ones described here, insanitary slums and mass drunkenness that devastated families have largely disappeared in Western civilization. Unfortunately their place has been taken by a large increase in drug trafficking and addiction, the growing sex trade and exploitation, and widespread online crime, to name just some challenges to modern society. So social problems haven't gone away so much as changed their nature, and the solutions required now to fight these concerns are not necessarily the ones in this story.
It is also worth noting that the characters in this book decide for themselves what changes they should make in their own lives to do what they believe Jesus would do in their circumstances. They don't impose their opinions on others. What one person does with their work or leisure time may not be right for another. The question Christians who have a genuine faith have to ask themselves (and answer) today is the one posed in this book -- "What would Jesus do?"
Chris Wright
Editor
Chapter One
IT WAS Friday, and the Rev. Henry Maxwell was trying to finish his Sunday morning sermon. He had been interrupted several times and was growing nervous as the morning wore away, and the sermon grew very slowly toward a satisfactory finish.
"Mary," he called to his wife, as he went upstairs after the last interruption, "if anyone comes, I wish you would say I am very busy and cannot come down -- unless it is something very important."
"Yes, Henry. But I am going over to visit the kindergarten, and you will have the house all to yourself."
The minister went up into his study and shut the door. In a few minutes he heard his wife go out, and then everything was quiet. He settled himself at his desk with a sigh of relief and began to write. His text was from 1 Peter 2:21: "For hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that ye should follow His steps."
He had put down "Steps. What are they?" and was about to enumerate them in logical order when the doorbell rang sharply.
Henry Maxwell sat at his desk and frowned. He made no movement to answer the doorbell. Very soon it rang again. Then he rose and walked over to one of his windows which commanded the view of the front door. A man was standing on the steps, very shabbily dressed.
"Looks like a tramp," said the minister, as he went downstairs and opened the front door.
There was a moment's pause as the two men stood facing each other, then the shabby-looking young man said, "I'm out of a job, sir, and thought maybe you might put me in the way of getting something."
"I don't know of anything. Jobs are scarce," replied the minister, beginning to shut the door slowly.
"I didn't know but you might perhaps be able to give me a line to the city railway or the superintendent of the railroad workshops, or something," continued the young man, shifting his faded hat from one hand to the other nervously.
"It would be of no use. You will have to excuse me; I am very busy this morning. I'm sorry I can't find you anything to do here, but I hope you find something."
The Rev. Henry Maxwell closed the door and heard the man walk down the steps. As he went up into his study he saw from his hall window that the man was going slowly down the street, still holding his hat between his hands. There was something in the figure so dejected, homeless and forsaken that the minister hesitated a moment as he stood looking at it. Then he turned to his desk and with a sigh began the writing where he had left off.
He had no more interruptions, and when his wife came in two hours later the sermon was finished, the loose leaves gathered up, neatly tied together, and laid on his Bible ready for the Sunday morning service.
"A strange thing happened at the kindergarten this morning, Henry," said his wife while they were eating dinner. "I went over with Mrs. Brown to visit the school, and just after the games, while the children were at the tables, the door opened and a young man came in holding a dirty hat in both hands. He sat down near the door and never said a word. He was evidently a tramp, and Miss Wren and her assistant Miss Kyle were a little frightened at first, but he sat there very quietly and after a few minutes he went out."
"Perhaps he was tired and wanted to rest somewhere. The same man called here, I think. Did you say he looked like a tramp?"
"Yes, very dusty, shabby and generally tramp-like. Not more than thirty or thirty-three years old, I should say."
"The same man," said the Rev. Henry Maxwell thoughtfully.
"Did you finish your sermon, Henry?" his wife asked after a pause.
"Yes, all done. It has been a very busy week with me. The two sermons have cost me a good deal of labor."
"They will be appreciated by a large audience, Sunday, I hope," replied his wife smiling. "What are you going to preach about in the morning?"
"Following Christ. I take up the Atonement under the head of sacrifice and example, and then show the steps needed to follow His sacrifice and example."
"I am sure it is a good sermon. I hope it won't rain Sunday. We have had so many stormy Sundays lately."
"Yes, the audiences have been quite small for some time. People will not come out to church in a storm."
The Rev. Henry Maxwell sighed as he said it. He was thinking of the careful, laborious effort he had made in preparing sermons for large audiences that failed to appear.
Chapter Two
SUNDAY morning dawned one of the perfect days that come after long periods of wind and mud and rain. The air was clear and bracing, the sky was free from all threatening signs, and everyone in Henry Maxwell's parish prepared to go to church.
When the service opened at eleven o'clock the large building was filled with an audience of the best-dressed, most comfortable-looking people of Raymond.
The First Church of Raymond believed in having the best music that money could buy, and its quartet choir this morning was a source of great pleasure to the congregation. The anthem was inspiring, all the music was in keeping with the subject of the sermon. And the anthem was an elaborate adaptation of the hymn, "Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee."
Just before the sermon, the soprano sang a solo, the well-known hymn, "Where He leads me I will follow, I'll go with Him, with Him, all the way."
Rachel Winslow looked beautiful that morning as she stood up behind the screen of carved oak which was marked with the cross and the crown. Her voice was even more beautiful than her face, and that meant a great deal. There was a general rustle of expectation over the audience as she rose. Henry Maxwell settled himself contentedly behind the pulpit.
People said to themselves they had never heard such singing in the First Church. If it had not been a church service, her solo would have been vigorously applauded. It even seemed to the minister when Rachel sat down that something like an attempted clapping of hands or a striking of feet on the floor swept through the church. He was startled by it. As he rose, however, and laid his sermon on the Bible, he said to himself he had been deceived. Of course it could not occur. In a few moments he was absorbed in his sermon and everything else was forgotten in the pleasure of his delivery.
No one had ever accused Henry Maxwell of being a dull preacher. On the contrary, he had often been charged with being sensational; not in what he had said so much as in his way of saying it. But the First Church people liked that. It gave their preacher and their parish a pleasant distinction that was agreeable.
It was also true that the pastor of the First Church loved to preach. There was an exhilarating half hour for him as he faced a church full of people. He never preached well before a small audience. He was at his best before just such an audience as faced him now, on just such a morning. He felt a glow of satisfaction as he went on. The church was the first in the city. It had
the best choir. It had a membership composed of representatives of the wealth, society and intelligence of Raymond.
The sermon had come to a close. Henry Maxwell was about to sit down as the quartet prepared to sing the closing selection, when the entire congregation was startled by the sound of a man's voice. It came from the rear of the church, from one of the seats under the gallery. The next moment the figure of a man came out of the shadow and walked down the middle aisle.
Before the startled congregation realized what was going on, the man reached the open space in front of the pulpit and turned about facing the people.
"I've been wondering since I came in here if it would be just the thing to say a word at the close of the service. I'm not drunk and I'm not crazy, and I am perfectly harmless. But if I die, as there is every likelihood I shall in a few days, I want the satisfaction of thinking that I said my say in a place like this, and before this sort of a crowd."
Henry Maxwell had not taken his seat, and he now remained standing, leaning on his pulpit, looking down at the stranger. It was the man who had come to his house Friday, the same dusty, worn, shabby-looking young man. He held his faded hat in his hands. It seemed to be a favorite gesture.
He had not shaved, and his hair was rough and tangled. It is doubtful if anyone like this had ever confronted the First Church within the sanctuary. It was familiar with this sort of humanity out on the street, around the railroad workshops, wandering up and down the avenue, but it had never dreamed of such an incident as this so near.
There was nothing offensive in the man's manner or tone. He spoke in a low but distinct voice. No one made any motion to stop the stranger or in any way interrupt him. All the while he was speaking, the minister leaded over the pulpit, and the people sat smitten into breathless silence. Rachel Winslow, from the choir, stared intently down at the shabby figure with the faded hat.
"I'm not an ordinary tramp, though I don't know of any teaching of Jesus that makes one kind of a tramp less worth saving than another. Do you?" He put the question as naturally as if the whole congregation had been a small Bible class. He paused just a moment and coughed painfully. Then he went on.
"I lost my job ten months ago. I am a printer by trade. The new linotype machines are beautiful specimens of invention, but I know six men put out of work who have killed themselves inside of the year just on account of those machines. Of course I don't blame the newspapers for getting the machines. Meanwhile, what can a man do? I never learned but the one trade, and that's all I can do.