Resartus,” in “Fraser’s Magazine,” strange, wild, and incomprehensible as it was to most men, they did not put it contemptuously aside, but pondered it, laughed at it, trembled over it and its dread apocalyptical visions and revelations, respecting its earnestness and eloquence, although not comprehending what manner of writing it essentially was.  Carlyle enjoyed the perplexity of his readers and reviewers, neither of whom, with the exception of men like Sterling, and a writer in one of the Quarterlies, seemed to know what they were talking about when they spoke of it.  The criticisms upon it were exceedingly comical in many instances, and the author put the most notable of these together, and always alluded to them with roars of laughter.  The book has never yet received justice at the hands of any literary tribunal.  It requires, indeed, a large amount of culture to appreciate it, either as a work of art, or as a living flame-painting of spiritual struggle and revelation.  In his previous writings he had insisted upon the sacredness and infinite value of the human soul,—­upon the wonder and mystery of life, and its dread surroundings,—­upon the divine significance of the universe, with its star pomp, and overhanging immensities,—­and upon the primal necessity for each man to stand with awe and reverence in this august and solemn presence, if he would hope to receive any glimpses of its meaning, or live a true and divine life in the world; and in the “Sartor” he has embodied and illustrated this in the person and actions of his hero.  He saw that religion had become secular; that it was reduced to a mere Sunday holiday and Vanity Fair, taking no vital hold of the lives of men, and radiating, therefore, none of its blessed and beautiful influences about their feet and ways; that human life itself, with all its adornments of beauty and poetry, was in danger of paralysis and death; that love and faith, truth, duty, and holiness, were fast losing their divine attributes in the common estimation, and were hurrying downwards with tears and a sad threnody into gloom and darkness.  Carlyle saw all this, and knew that it was the reaction of that intellectual idolatry which brought the eighteenth century to a close; knew also that there was only one remedy which could restore men to life and health,—­namely, the quickening once again of their spiritual nature.  He felt, also, that it was his mission to attempt this miracle; and hence the prophetic fire and vehemence of his words.  No man, and especially no earnest man, can read him without feeling himself arrested as by the grip of a giant,—­without trembling before his stern questions, inculcations, and admonitions.  There is a God, O Man! and not a blind chance, as governor of this world.  Thy soul has infinite relations with this God, which thou canst never realize in thy being, or manifest in thy practical life, save by a devout reverence for him, and his miraculous, awful universe.  This reverence, this deep, abiding