Love and Disbelief. By J. Yule Cleland. (Roper and Drowley.)
—This book is described on the title-page as "a novel," and in a remarkably complacent preface the author, who "has for some years been viewing from a somewhat advantageous standpoint the mustering of the forces for and against the truth of Christianity," says that he "at one time meditated giving to the world some dissertations, with a view to help the opposing armies of the budding scientists and the fossil religionists to understand each other," but came to the conclusion that the best thing he could do would be to write "a religious novel." He is by no means well qualified for his self-imposed task, for his opinions on religions problems have not been carefully reasoned out, and he has no power of plot-construction. So we have here an odd mixture of more or less pious love-making and theological controversy, with a description of the beauties of the Isle of Wight. The two girls, Ethel and Maud, daughters of a person who is persistently and provokingly described as "Henry Hunt, Esq.," are drawn with a fair amount of skill, though the same cannot be said of their lovers, Hind and Holt. It is only fair to the author of Love and Disbelief to say that he evidently does know something of the life of the "toiling masses" in London.
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