Charles Lever: Or, The Man of the Nineteenth Century

The following tale is designed to set forth ... the dangers to which our ill-cemented social system exposes the most numerous and important class in society; dangers to which they become victim not so much from natural causes, as from defective education, want of access to sound religious instruction, popular fallacies and prejudices, never more abundant than at present; all which are fostered by a corrupt and venal press, by the harangues of the infidel lecturer and the false liberal, and the numerous other destructive tendencies which are rife in the nineteenth century.