Carlyle has held his genius as a trust--has sought to unite it to his religion (whatever _that_ may be)--has expressed it in the language of a determined life--and has made, by the power of his example, many to go and do likewise. If he has not produced a yet broader and more permanent effect--if Carlyleism, as a system, is fast weakening and dying away--if the young minds of the age are beginning to crave something better than a creed with no articles, a gospel of negations, a faith with no forms, a hope with no foundations, a Christianity without facts (like a man with life and blood, but without limbs)! the fault lies in the system, and not in the author of it. Although, to this also we are tempted to attribute his well-known disgust _latterly_ at literature. He has tried to form his own sincere love and prosecution of it into a religion, and has failed. And why? Literature is only a subjective, and not an objective reality. It is made to adorn and explain religion--but no sincerity of prosecution, or depth of insight can change it into a religion itself. _That_ must have not only an inward significance, but an outward sign, more vital and lasting than the Nature of the Poet. This the Christian finds in Jesus, and the glorious facts connected with him. But Carlyle, with all his deep earnestness, and purity of life, has become, we fear, a worshiper without a God, a devotee with the object of the devotion extinct--a strong swimmer in a Dead Sea, where no arm can cleave the salt and sluggish waters--and although he seems to despise the mere adorer of beauty, yet nothing else does he adore, and nothing else has he hitherto taught, but this, that one may worship no distinctly objective Deity, and be, nevertheless, a sincere, worthy, and high-minded man. But he has left the questions unanswered: Will such a faith produce results on the generality of men--will it _stand_? and, although it may so far satisfy the conscience as to produce in one man, or a few like unto him, the satisfaction of sincerity, can it produce the perseverance of action, the patience of hope, and the energy of faith, which have worked, and are working, in thousands and millions of Christian men--alike high and humble, rich and poor, ignorant and refined? Still, great should be the praise of a man who has redeemed literature from degradation, and changed it into a noble, if not a thoroughly religious thing, by the sheer force of genius, and rugged sincerity. RACE HORSES AND HORSE RACES.