Popular Infidelity. By the Rev. Herman Hooker, M. A.—This is the fifth volume of the Library of Christian Knowledge, and is an original work of the accomplished editor of that valuable series. All classes of Christians may find food for reflection in the very important considerations suggested by the author. The work is not, as might be supposed, a defence of the outworks of Christianity against the scepticism of the professed Infidel. But it is a most able and eloquent attack upon the practical infidelity of professed believers. Every kind and degree of unbelief are powerfully assailed. The secret enemies of faith are dragged from their lurking places, stripped of their disguise, and held up to the light in their naked deformities. The extensive reading of this work cannot but promote the cause of religion in the community.—National Gazette, Aug. 6, 1836.
Popular Infidelity. By the Rev. Herman Hooker, belongs to a class of works which are seldom read as extensively as they deserve. Its purpose is to show to what extent a practical disbelief in Christianity exists even among those, who living in a Christian community, and committing no violation of its external ordinances, believe and call themselves Christians. That this adherence to the form, without retaining the substance, is too common among all classes, is a truth which even superficial observation will render manifest, but which Mr. H. illustrates by many well chosen examples. We wish his essay a circulation corresponding to its merits.—Commercial Herald, Aug. 9, 1836.
Popular Infidelity. By the Rev. Herman Hooker, M. A.—We have read this book with no ordinary interest. The subject on which it treats is of vital importance to every class of readers. We have several valuable works upon this subject, but none, that we know of, which occupies the ground taken by our author.
He has descended into the dark arcana of the human soul, and following the intricate winding of the unbelief through all its hidden and unseen influences, has exposed the fallacy of that popular sentimentalism which often passes for religion, and shown the contrariety which exists between the professed opinions and conduct of men, to be owing to the latent infidelity of the heart.
It will be difficult to find a book, that so drives us into the contemplation of ourselves; that so accurately analyzes the thoughts and feelings of men, and so vividly exhibits the self-flattery, by which we cheat ourselves into the belief, that we reverence and admire the character of God, when all we admire and reverence, is but the image of ourselves, which we have contrived to ascribe to him.
In a word, it is rich in the most difficult of all knowledge, the knowledge of ourselves. It is full of thought; thought that often surprises, not only by originality of conception, but by the striking and beautiful contrast in which it is presented.
Few persons, we imagine, can read any one chapter of this book, and not wish to read the whole. The style is colloquial, nervous, and animated; the language, in a high degree, Saxon.