THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH;

OR

A VISIT TO A RELIGIOUS SCEPTIC.

FIFTH EDITION.

BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS AND COMPANY,
111 WASHINGTON STREET.

1854.

AMERICAN PREFACE.

The effect of the perusal of this book, and the estimate put
upon it by a reader, will depend upon his taking with him a
right view of its design. That design seems in the mind of
the writer to have been very definite and very restricted. If
he should be thought to have intended an answer to all the
elaborate objections from criticism and philosophy recently or
renewedly urged against faith in the Christian revelation,
and, still more, if the reader should suppose that the author
had aimed to remove all the difficulties in the way of
such a faith, he would equally insure his own disappointment,
and wrong the writer. The book comes forth anonymously, but it
is ascribed to Mr. Henry Rogers, some of whose very able
papers in the Edinburgh Review have been republished in two
octavo volumes in England, and one of whose articles, that on
"Reason and Faith," dealt with some of the topics which form