Concealed Infidelity by N. Y. Examiner

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 20, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 12.

Concealed Infidelity.

By N. Y. Examiner

It is startling to a Christian mind, in turning over the pages of recent books, to find how thoroughly modern literature is tainted with the essence of infidelity. It rarely appears, in these times, in a gross and revolting shape, but in the far more dangerous disguise of a poor, sweet, humanitarian philosophy, a religion of science and nature; a sort of Christian paganism, in which the phrases and many of the doctrines of the Bible are so artfully interwoven as to present a deceitful appearance of the truth of God. This tendency is not confined to books that treat avowedly on religious topics, but pervades, in a greater or less degree, every department of modern literature. Out of a dozen new novels, books of science, political treatises, or whatever you choose, at least six or eight, on being read, will leave an impression behind unfavorable to Christianity; yet perhaps without containing a sentence that could be interpreted as openly hostile to religion. It is the general tone that does the evil work. One feels, without being able to say exactly how, that the tendency of thought is destructive of religious belief; that, somehow, his faith has received a wound, as from a weapon tainted with subtle poison.

In this characteristic lies the great danger of such books. Open arguments against the Christian religion can be met and refuted, as they have been met and refuted a hundred times already, until they have lost the power of influencing the minds of thinking men. But how shall this sly, insinuating, serpent-like spirit be met? Its presence is hardly perceptible until its evil work has been accomplished. This is especially true, we are pained to say, of books intended for the young. Under the attractive garb of a story told with exquisite simplicity and beautifully illustrated, there is too often taught a spurious morality that gently sets aside the Bible, and insinuates doubts that eventually culminate in various forms of infidelity. Let no one under-estimate the extent of this danger.—N. Y. Examiner, 1867.