SHEELEIGH, Matthias, clergyman, born at Charlestown, Chester County, Pennsylvania, 29 December, 1821. He is a descendant of a German family that came to this country early in the 18th century, and whose name originally was Schillich. He studied in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and in Pennsylvania college, Gettysburg, in 1840-'1, and was graduated at the theological seminary there in 1852. In the same year he was ordained to the ministry of the Lutheran church, and in 1885 he received the degree of D. D. from Newberry college, Newberry, South Carolina He has filled various pastorates in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and since 1869 has been at Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. He was secretary of the general synod in 1866, 1868, and 1871, has been a member of the Lutheran board of publication since 1859, and its president in 1869-'71, and a director of Gettysburg theological seminary since 1864. In 1868 he was appointed by the general synod one of its delegates to the meeting of the World's evangelical alliance that was held in New York in 1878. He has won reputation as a poet and statistician, and is a frequent contributor to religious periodicals. He has been editor of the "Sunday-School Herald," in Philadelphia, since 1860, and of the "Lutheran Almanac and Year-Book" since 1871. Besides numerous doctrinal and historical articles in theological reviews, and many contributions in poetry and prose to periodicals, he has published "Hymns for the Seventh Jubilee of the Reformation" (Philadelphia, 1867); "An Ecclesiad: A Jubilee Poem before the General Synod " (1871) ; " A Gettysburgiad: A Jubilee Poem before the Gettysburg Theological Seminary" (1876) ; and "Luther : A Song Tribute, more than Fifty Original Poems, on the 400th Anniversary of Luther's Birth'" (1883). A large number of his hymns have found a place in collections. He has a volume of original sonnets nearly ready for publication. Besides these, he has published "Olaf Thorlaksson, an Icelandic Narrative," translated from the German (1870);"Outline of Old Testament History" (1869) ; "Outline of New Testament History" (1870); "Herald Picture Books" (12 vols., 1873) ; and a "Brief History of Martin Luther" (1883).