The Project Gutenberg EBook of The High Calling, by Charles M. Sheldon

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Title: The High Calling

Author: Charles M. Sheldon

Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26309]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGH CALLING ***

Produced by Carl D. DuBois

THE HIGH CALLING

BY
CHARLES M. SHELDON
AUTHOR OF "IN HIS STEPS," ETC.

HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

Copyright, 1911,
By George H. Doran Company

TO MY SON
MERRIAM WARD

FOREWORD

The story, "The High Calling," was written at two different periods, in
1909 and 1910, and was read at two different periods, chapter by
chapter, to the young people in my church, on successive Sunday
evenings. The main purpose of the story is to illustrate the value of
the average American family training and the final victory of the
spiritual ideals over material or physical attractions. The final
outcome of the struggle which Helen Douglas makes between her natural
inclination to follow a life of ease and luxury, and the real training
which she has received at home, is the picture of what is going on in
the best American homes to-day. It has been my hope that the story would
help many young people to realize the great difference between the
finest type of manhood and womanhood, and that which in some cases has
grown up on American soil, where the standards have been low and the
ideals have been obscured by fashion, by false home training, and by
superficial ideas of happiness. In other words, my purpose has been to
describe, in the main characters in the book, the manly heroic type of
Christian struggle and final victory which realizes the response which
the higher nature makes to the call from above. This idea which runs
through the story gives it its name of "The High Calling." As my own
young people gave the story a beautiful reception in their listening to
it, it is my earnest hope that if the book has the good fortune to find
a larger audience it may reach more young people with the same message.

Topeka, Kansas, 1911. CHARLES M. SHELDON.

THE HIGH CALLING

CHAPTER I

PAUL DOUGLAS and his wife, Est