Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science appeared in 1874 in a popular series aimed at general readers, and it did what publishers dream of. It went through printing after printing, was translated into a dozen languages, and put a single memorable image into circulation: two powers, knowledge and faith, in a struggle running the length of recorded history, with the outcome not yet decided.
The image is broader than the argument in the book. Draper's real subject is the Roman Catholic Church, and the timing is not accidental. The First Vatican Council had declared papal infallibility in 1870, and the Syllabus of Errors of 1864 had condemned the proposition that the Roman pontiff ought to reconcile himself with progress and modern civilisation. Draper treats these as declarations of hostility and answers them. Protestantism, by contrast, he treats gently, and Islamic scholarship of the medieval period he treats with open admiration, crediting Muslim astronomers and physicians with keeping the sciences alive while Latin Europe did not.
Rome obliged him by placing the book on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1876, which confirmed his thesis for every reader who already agreed with it and did nothing measurable to sales. The lasting effect was linguistic. After 1874 the relation of science and religion had a default metaphor, and it was war.