Charles M. Sheldon (1857-1946) was an American social reformer who was best known for his authorship of the best selling inspirational novel In His Steps (1897). A longtime pastor in Topeka, Kansas, he was an early advocate of civil rights and social services for African Americans and a firm believer in putting one's religion into practice in daily life.

Charles M. Sheldon was born on February 26, 1857, at Wellsville, New York. His father was a minister, and the family moved frequently until, in 1869, they homesteaded a frontier tract and lived in a log cabin in the Dakota Territory for several years. Sheldon went to school at Phillips Academy, Brown University, and Andover Theological Seminary, completing his theological degree in 1886. He then accepted a pastorate in the Congregational Church at Waterbury, Vermont, but stayed only two years, since he desired a new church he could help direct from the beginning. He...