In sending forth another book belonging to the class known as religious novels, the author is moved to say a word to the critics who received a former one with so pleasant a mixture of praise and depr...

In sending forth another book belonging to the class known as religious novels, the author is moved to say a word to the critics who received a former one with so pleasant a mixture of praise and deprecation. As one of them frankly explained, "they like a pill none the better for being sugar-coated." It is not necessary to remind them that there may be younger (and possibly older) people who do. It is more to the point to state that persons to whom religion is a pill—a bitter, nauseous compound, to be bolted in sickness, and kept out of sight in health—are not the persons for whom the author writes.