Gladden, Washington, a distinguished Congregational minister and author, son of Solomon Gladden, was born at Pottsgrove, Pa., February 11, 1836. Reared on a farm near Oswego, N. Y., and educated in a country district school and at Oswego Academy, he first learned the printer's trade and later entered Williams College, from which he graduated in 1859. He was licensed to preach in 1860. He was successively pastor of Congregational Churches in Brooklyn, N. Y., 1860; Morrisania, N. Y., 1861-66; North Adams, Mass., 1866-71; Springfield, Mass., 1875-82; and from 1882 to the present date (1911) he has been pastor of the First Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio, where he now resides. From 1871 to 1875 he was on the editorial staff of the New York Independent, and later, while pastor at Springfield, he was editor of the weekly periodical, Sunday Afternoon. Dr. Gladden is one of the most widely known and influential pastors, preachers, lecturers, and religious writers in America. In deep sympathy with the masses and the working people, his voice and pen have long been exercised in the work of social reform. He is the author of about thirty widely read volumes on religious, ethical, and social subjects, among which may be mentioned: Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 1868; Workingmen and Their Employers, 1876; The Young Men and the Churches, 1885; Applied Christianity, 1887; Who Wrote the Bible? 1891; The Church and the Kingdom, 1894; Ruling Ideas of the Present Age, 1895; The Christian Pastor, 1898; Social Salvation, 1901; Christianity and Socialism, 1905; Recollections, 1909.