First American Edition. Blind embossed cloth 8vo; 495, (1), 4pp ads. Very Good with rubbing to boards, cloth fraying at the corners and spine ends with a touch of bubbling to the front board. Contents with foxing to outer leaves but overall age toned but clean; a few leaves and clippings inserted with associated offsetting. Several stylized ownership stamps of W. W. Brown and decoratively penned inscription on ffep. 7 copies in U. S. Institutions.

The work features in many academic writings on the Victorian religious novel which tend to be more generous in the appreciation of its place in the context than as a work of literary or moral merit. Written with a Mormon antagonist and lazily generalized characters, The National Review published a hilariously scathing review almost twenty pages long, drawing on theological debates between the "Hard Church" and "Broad Church.” It criticizes Conybeare’s Hard Church treatment of doubters as unidimensional caricatures that fail to acknowledge the complexity of the character’s humanity and circumstances. In the “miserable shams which pass in such quick succession…” the review especially points out, “We are at a loss to understand why so much pains should be taken to make men and women of the manufacturing classes seem odious and mean. There is no effort to point out their peculiar moral dangers. They are simply held up to ridicule and disgust." (p. 136)

"We have no words to express our intense disapproval and horror of the spirit that rather grumbles because scepticism is not sceptical enough and drives away those amongst the sceptics who cling fervently to the belief in the sinfulness of sin and the duty of prayer with a taunt that it would be more consistent to embrace a better developed type of infidelity." (p. 142)  (The National Review, Vol. III. London, Chapman and Hall, 1856).