MISS LURANA W. SHELDON, whose articles appear frequently in the columns of the Free Thought Magazine, is of New England origin, her mother being a descendant of early Cape Cod settlers and her father the great grandchild of Jonathan Edwards, the "most eminent divine" of the eighteenth century. Whether Miss Sheldon's religious infidelity is a reaction of Jonathan's piety, she does not know, but if this is the case, to quote her own words, "the bigotry of the pious gentleman with the ten children was not in vain, it resulted in freeing at least one brain from the thraldom of inherent superstition."

      Miss Sheldon was born at Hadlyme, the junction of the innumerable Lymes and Haddams on the Connecticut river, and after receiving the best education that a public and private school could give her, started out in the world at the age of seventeen to earn her own living.

      Of her hardships Miss Sheldon refuses to talk, on the grounds that a "tale of woe" is never interesting to any one but the teller. To quote her own words again, she was "endowed with an inheritance of poverty, poor health and ambition, which prove, under any environments, a damnable mixture." With this handicap she was forced to begin the struggle of life and, to add to her difficulties, she declares further she "was born with a spirit which could not tolerate rebuke and a mettle which would yield to no discipline whatever."

      "I felt that I had been wronged from the hour of my conception," she says, "and a feeling of resentment was the first sentiment of my nature."

      With this sentiment predominating, Miss Sheldon could not and would not tread the only paths which were open to women in her position; she was determined to travel on the plane of her own inclinations or not travel at all, and her course has been marked at every step with the bruises of collision with obstacles which a more acquiescent nature would not have encountered.

      She was absolutely without funds at the beginning of her career, but sick or well, she has met every expense that she ever incurred without once asking for an "extension of time" or credit.

      She claims to have earned her living in fifteen different and totally dissimilar lines of business, having "turned her hand" from bookkeeping to "business managing," from newspaper work to the chemical laboratory and from "buying dry goods" to writing stories.

      In the fall of 1882 Miss Sheldon matriculated with the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, and after spending six years in the study and practice of medicine was obliged to abandon it because of threatened nervous prostration.

      She began writing verses at the age of ten years, but it was not until she was twenty-five that she placed a monetary value upon her efforts.

      From that time she began filling in odd hours with her pen, and at the present time her published stories amount to over two hundred and her humorous verses are known to every editor of a Sunday newspaper and pictorial weekly in the country.

      Miss Sheldon's poem entitled "The Medical Student's Dream," together with some prose work, was requested for the exhibit of New York State literature by the Board of Managers at the World's Fair in Chicago.

      Miss Sheldon was brought up an orthodox Congregationalist, but her doubts ripened early and reaped their harvest.

      The God of the Bible soon became in her eyes not only a "moral monstrosity," but an "inconceivable hypothesis," and she saw no shadow of reason in the "vicarious atonement." A God who creates beings with an "inclination" toward evil furnishes the temptation for the committing of said evil, and then punishes his own creatures for acting out the impulses of their natures, was a being whom she could not and would not worship. In early life she read Clodd, Drummond and John Stuart Mill and studied her Bible with a concordance, besides spending many hours praying for enlightenment on these important (?) subjects, but the only knowledge which she could glean that in any way satisfied her common sense and reason came later in the study of Buchner, Huxley, Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and in company with such intellects as these she soon realized that she was beyond the need of Faith in the undemonstrable vagaries of superstition.

      Miss Sheldon has published the greater part of her work under assumed names, or no name at all, partly through her own desire and partly through the injustice of editors.

      At present her range of literary work extends from short Free Thought articles for the various liberal magazines, Humor for the Sunday newspapers, ghost stories and pathos for various monthlies to thrilling tales of adventure for boys in all classes. Miss Sheldon's affection for animals amounts almost to mania, and she declares in more than forcible language that "if she were possessed of great wealth she would spend a large portion of it in trying to punish two classes of people — first, the class who neglect or illtreat animals, and, second, the men and women who bring children into the world without a clean bill of health, morals or temperament, to say nothing of sufficient wealth to insure them against hardship."

      Miss Sheldon lives alone in a cozy flat and shuns society for the reason that "the only people whom she ever agrees with are found in books, and she is tired of coming in contact with their ignorant maligners."

      She has no desire to pose as a reformer, but it is a constant source of irritation to her that people who are in position to do so do not avail themselves of the opportunity to improve existing conditions a little.

      Miss Sheldon's travels embrace her own country, Canada, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. She has never been "abroad," but feels that this pleasure awaits her in the future. She says that no woman was ever contented with less of the world's goods than she has been, and feels that the bitterness of life lies in unrewarded merit.

      Her struggles to "keep her head above water" in a large city like New York, without a dollar in her pocket and a very large ache in her head, would make a volume of useful information for other strugglers, and it is the injustice of human nature, the so-called handiwork of God, that prompts her to an occasional effort in the Free Thought direction, "not but that people are welcome to any faith they choose but because a God that one could respect must be a welcome innovation." Such a God she has found in Science. Faith, Hope and Love represent nothing to her but the highest possible achievement of the physical organism, yet they lose nothing of their value springing from a source that is both reasonable and demonstrable. The little help and favors which she has received through life have not come from churches, home missions or Christians.

      When she asked for suitable employment for a woman of her intelligence at the Woman's Christian Association she was requested to tell her family history, declare her faith in God and give up a percentage of her earnings for a servant's position. She declined with thanks and went her own way. It was another argument in favor of the utter worthlessness of Christian teachings.

      During her first year in college Miss Sheldon boarded at the Bible and Fruit Mission of her city, and in her visits with that organization to Blackwells Island, Harts Island, Wards Island, etc., where the cities' paupers, lunatics, imbeciles, incurables and convicts are quartered, she saw enough to convince her that no such being as a God could exist and that the question of existence had only a physical basis.

      For years she went here and there among the city's outcasts with the members of some so-called "mission" or other, but the spectacle of some hypocrite, exhorting an honest sinner to "be good," was too much of a strain for a candid nature. Says Miss Sheldon:

      I have found the happiness of life in the companionship of books, animals and an occasional true friend and the satisfaction in dividing a dollar with one more destitute than myself. The rest is only a panorama of injustice and folly, a farce in which serious things, like child-bearing, are treated indifferently, and absurd matters like the salvation of a soul, which we do not know exists, are carried to the extreme of bloodshed and torture.

      This is the experience of a woman whose life has been one long struggle to secure and retain the niche for which she was fitted by a power which knows nothing of equalization or justice.

MISS LURANA W. SHELDON, whose articles appear frequently in the columns of the Free Thought Magazine, is of New England origin, her mother being a descendant of early Cape Cod settlers and her father the great grandchild of Jonathan Edwards, the "most eminent divine" of the eighteenth century. Whether Miss Sheldon's religious infidelity is a reaction of Jonathan's piety, she does not know, but if this is the case, to quote her own words, "the bigotry of the pious gentleman with the ten children was not in vain, it resulted in freeing at least one brain from the thraldom of inherent superstition."

      Miss Sheldon was born at Hadlyme, the junction of the innumerable Lymes and Haddams on the Connecticut river, and after receiving the best education that a public and private school could give her, started out in the world at the age of seventeen to earn her own living.

      Of her hardships Miss Sheldon refuses to talk, on the grounds that a "tale of woe" is never interesting to any one but the teller. To quote her own words again, she was "endowed with an inheritance of poverty, poor health and ambition, which prove, under any environments, a damnable mixture." With this handicap she was forced to begin the struggle of life and, to add to her difficulties, she declares further she "was born with a spirit which could not tolerate rebuke and a mettle which would yield to no discipline whatever."

      "I felt that I had been wronged from the hour of my conception," she says, "and a feeling of resentment was the first sentiment of my nature."

      With this sentiment predominating, Miss Sheldon could not and would not tread the only paths which were open to women in her position; she was determined to travel on the plane of her own inclinations or not travel at all, and her course has been marked at every step with the bruises of collision with obstacles which a more acquiescent nature would not have encountered.

      She was absolutely without funds at the beginning of her career, but sick or well, she has met every expense that she ever incurred without once asking for an "extension of time" or credit.

      She claims to have earned her living in fifteen different and totally dissimilar lines of business, having "turned her hand" from bookkeeping to "business managing," from newspaper work to the chemical laboratory and from "buying dry goods" to writing stories.

      In the fall of 1882 Miss Sheldon matriculated with the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, and after spending six years in the study and practice of medicine was obliged to abandon it because of threatened nervous prostration.

      She began writing verses at the age of ten years, but it was not until she was twenty-five that she placed a monetary value upon her efforts.

      From that time she began filling in odd hours with her pen, and at the present time her published stories amount to over two hundred and her humorous verses are known to every editor of a Sunday newspaper and pictorial weekly in the country.

      Miss Sheldon's poem entitled "The Medical Student's Dream," together with some prose work, was requested for the exhibit of New York State literature by the Board of Managers at the World's Fair in Chicago.

      Miss Sheldon was brought up an orthodox Congregationalist, but her doubts ripened early and reaped their harvest.

      The God of the Bible soon became in her eyes not only a "moral monstrosity," but an "inconceivable hypothesis," and she saw no shadow of reason in the "vicarious atonement." A God who creates beings with an "inclination" toward evil furnishes the temptation for the committing of said evil, and then punishes his own creatures for acting out the impulses of their natures, was a being whom she could not and would not worship. In early life she read Clodd, Drummond and John Stuart Mill and studied her Bible with a concordance, besides spending many hours praying for enlightenment on these important (?) subjects, but the only knowledge which she could glean that in any way satisfied her common sense and reason came later in the study of Buchner, Huxley, Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and in company with such intellects as these she soon realized that she was beyond the need of Faith in the undemonstrable vagaries of superstition.

      Miss Sheldon has published the greater part of her work under assumed names, or no name at all, partly through her own desire and partly through the injustice of editors.

      At present her range of literary work extends from short Free Thought articles for the various liberal magazines, Humor for the Sunday newspapers, ghost stories and pathos for various monthlies to thrilling tales of adventure for boys in all classes. Miss Sheldon's affection for animals amounts almost to mania, and she declares in more than forcible language that "if she were possessed of great wealth she would spend a large portion of it in trying to punish two classes of people — first, the class who neglect or illtreat animals, and, second, the men and women who bring children into the world without a clean bill of health, morals or temperament, to say nothing of sufficient wealth to insure them against hardship."

      Miss Sheldon lives alone in a cozy flat and shuns society for the reason that "the only people whom she ever agrees with are found in books, and she is tired of coming in contact with their ignorant maligners."

      She has no desire to pose as a reformer, but it is a constant source of irritation to her that people who are in position to do so do not avail themselves of the opportunity to improve existing conditions a little.

      Miss Sheldon's travels embrace her own country, Canada, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. She has never been "abroad," but feels that this pleasure awaits her in the future. She says that no woman was ever contented with less of the world's goods than she has been, and feels that the bitterness of life lies in unrewarded merit.

      Her struggles to "keep her head above water" in a large city like New York, without a dollar in her pocket and a very large ache in her head, would make a volume of useful information for other strugglers, and it is the injustice of human nature, the so-called handiwork of God, that prompts her to an occasional effort in the Free Thought direction, "not but that people are welcome to any faith they choose but because a God that one could respect must be a welcome innovation." Such a God she has found in Science. Faith, Hope and Love represent nothing to her but the highest possible achievement of the physical organism, yet they lose nothing of their value springing from a source that is both reasonable and demonstrable. The little help and favors which she has received through life have not come from churches, home missions or Christians.

      When she asked for suitable employment for a woman of her intelligence at the Woman's Christian Association she was requested to tell her family history, declare her faith in God and give up a percentage of her earnings for a servant's position. She declined with thanks and went her own way. It was another argument in favor of the utter worthlessness of Christian teachings.

      During her first year in college Miss Sheldon boarded at the Bible and Fruit Mission of her city, and in her visits with that organization to Blackwells Island, Harts Island, Wards Island, etc., where the cities' paupers, lunatics, imbeciles, incurables and convicts are quartered, she saw enough to convince her that no such being as a God could exist and that the question of existence had only a physical basis.

      For years she went here and there among the city's outcasts with the members of some so-called "mission" or other, but the spectacle of some hypocrite, exhorting an honest sinner to "be good," was too much of a strain for a candid nature. Says Miss Sheldon:

      I have found the happiness of life in the companionship of books, animals and an occasional true friend and the satisfaction in dividing a dollar with one more destitute than myself. The rest is only a panorama of injustice and folly, a farce in which serious things, like child-bearing, are treated indifferently, and absurd matters like the salvation of a soul, which we do not know exists, are carried to the extreme of bloodshed and torture.

      This is the experience of a woman whose life has been one long struggle to secure and retain the niche for which she was fitted by a power which knows nothing of equalization or justice.