That Carlyle is not only an earnest, but a profoundly religious man, these attempted elucidations of his teachings will abundantly show.  His religion, however, is very far remote from what is called religion in this day.  He has no patience with second-hand beliefs,—­with articles of faith ready-made for the having.  Whatsoever is accepted by men because it is the tradition of their fathers, and not a deep conviction arrived at by legitimate search, is to him of no avail; and all merely historical and intellectual faith, standing outside the man, and not absorbed in the life as a vital, moving, and spiritual power, he places also amongst the chaff for burning.  This world is a serious world, and human life and business are also serious matters,—­not to be trifled with, nor cheated by shams and hypocrisies, but to be dealt with in all truth, soberness, and sincerity.  No one can thus deal with it who is not himself possessed of these qualities, and the result of a life is the test of what virtue there is in it.  False men leave no mark.  It is truth alone which does the masonry of the world,—­which founds empires, and builds cities, and establishes laws, commerce, and civilization.  And in private life the same law abides, indestructible as God.  Carlyle’s teaching tends altogether in this direction; and whilst he belongs to no church and no creed, he is tolerant of all, and of everything that is heartily and unfeignedly believed in by his fellows.  He is no Catholic; and yet for years he read little else than the forty volumes of the “Acta Sanctorum,” and found, he says, all Christian history there, and much of profane history.  Neither is he a Mahometan; but he nevertheless makes a hero of Mahomet, whom he loves for his Ishmaelite fierceness, bravery, and religious sincerity,—­and because he taught deism, or the belief in one God, instead of the old polytheism, or the belief in many gods,—­and gave half the East his very good book, called the Koran, for his followers to live and die by.

Whether this large catholicism, this worship of heroes, is the best of what now remains of religion on earth is certainly questionable enough; and if we regard it in no other light than merely as an idolatry of persons, there is an easy answer ready for it.  But considering that religion is now so far dead that it consists in little else than formalities, and that its divine truth is no longer such to half the great world, which lies, indeed, in dire atrophy and wickedness,—­and if we further consider and agree that the awakened human soul is the divinest thing on earth, and partakes of the divine nature itself, and that its manifestations are also divine in whomsoever it is embodied, we can see some apology for its adoption; inasmuch as it is the divine likeness to which reverence and homage are rendered, and not the person merely, but only so far as he is the medium of its showing.  Christianity, however, will assuredly survive, although doubtless in a new form, preserving all the integrity of its message,—­and be once more faith and life to men, when the present old, established, decaying cultus shall be venerated only as history.