While Cornelius

vidual is benefited by the prayers of another. fasted and prayed, the gospel was sent to the Gentiles, who knew nothing of the deep agony of his heart for them, the result of which was glorious. When King Darius had been ensnared by Daniel's persecutors to sign an unchangeable decree, consigning him to the lions' den, and found that he could not prevail with his officers to have it reversed, so as to save Daniel, though he laboured with them till the going down of the sun, he "was sore displeased with himself." It was with deep, heartfelt reluctance that he had the fearful sentence executed, but not without some hope that Daniel's God would deliver him. "Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of music brought before him: and his sleep went from him." Early next morning the king was at the lions' den, and cried, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?" Who can imagine the joy which thrilled the heart of that monarch, when Daniel responded: “O king, live forever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me." Thus, while wicked courtiers revelled over the death of the good man, as they presumed, their afflicted sovereign fasted and prayed for his deliverance; and God, who was for him, proved greater than all that were against him. Great encouragement is here afforded to the children of God, to fast and pray for the deliverance of their pious friends in the day of persecution and peril; and even for such as are in danger of falling into the hands of the tormentors, worse than hungry, ferocious lions, that they may be spared, awakened, and saved.

The beneficial results of fasting, in many cases, have been general, extending to whole communities. While Esther, and Mordecai, and their servants and maidens fasted, enlargement arose to the Jews, and large multitudes of men, women, and children were rescued from cruel massacre. The Prophet Jonah was sent by divine appointment to make proclamation, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." But the people, moved by Jonah's preaching, betook themselves to a rigorous fast. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." They changed their manner of life, and he changed his manner of dealing with them. Had they persisted in their wickedness forty days, he would have destroyed them; but they repented, and God relented.

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In concluding this article, we take occasion to remark, that we, as a people in these United States, have much reason to be interested in the subject under consideration. As a nation, though perhaps no

worse than others, our sins are numerous and great. Profanity, disregard of the holy Sabbath, drunkenness, lewdness, fraud, and oppression, exist to an alarming extent. Party political measures are often corrupt, and sometimes marked with violence,-threatening even the disruption of our Union. The political press is prostituted to demagoguism and slander, as a general thing, catering to the worst passions of men, and to party intrigue, instead of supporting the country and its noble institutions. Men in high places, who should be examples of virtue and piety, are too commonly degraded libertines. Even our churches are too much conformed to the world, and too much involved in bitter controversy among themselves, when they have need to concentrate their united energy against the powers of infidelity and sin. Some who are set as watchmen upon the walls of Zion, to sound a timely alarm, are fast asleep; and many who once knew the way of righteousness have turned aside from the holy commandments delivered unto them, so that their last state is worse than the first. All these things, and many others, cry to Heaven against us for vengeance. The judgments of God are abroad in the earth,-famine, war, and pestilence move in quick succession, sweeping away multitudes of the guilty inhabitants of this sin-polluted world into a fearful state of retribution. Surely, then, such as have access to the mercy-seat, and power with God in prayer, should fast and plead with him, that we perish not in our sins as a people, but live and prosper, proving to all the world that "righteousness exalteth a nation." We have much encouragement to return unto the Lord by penitence, prayer, and fasting, for there is forgiveness with Him, that he may be feared. And here again we humbly but earnestly renew the suggestion, that a national fast would be both opportune and salutary, as anciently. "Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil." Joel ii, 12, 13.

ART. III.-THOMAS CARLYLE.

1. Past and Present, Chartism and Sartor Resartus. By THOMAS CARLYLE. New edition, complete in one volume,-2 vols. in 1, pp. 386, 233. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1848.

2. The French Revolution; a History. By THOMAS CARLYLE. 2 vols., pp. 470, 477. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1848.

3. Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; including the Supplement to the First Edition, with Elucidations. By THOMAS CARLYLE. 2 vols., pp. 560, 613. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1848.

4. On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. Six Lectures, reported with Emendations and Additions. By THOMAS CARLYLE. Pp. 299. New-York: D. Appleton & Co. 1842.

BEFORE resuming our observations on the remaining works of Mr. Carlyle, we desire to say a word concerning the new edition of his historical works, recently issued from the prolific press of the Harpers. The main advantages of this edition are the latest personal revision of the author, and an Appendix to the Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, containing some additional letters alleged to have been discovered since the publication of the first compilation. We shall not enter into the controversy that has arisen concerning the genuineness of these letters, as it is aside from our present purpose, and, however it may be decided, will not affect the judgment we have rendered, either on the stern old Protector or his admiring editor. This new edition is enriched with fine portraits of Cromwell and Carlyle, each presenting a face that is worthy of some study. The edition merits, as it must receive, an extensive circulation.

We now turn to the Pons Asinorum of our author's works, "SARTOR RESARTUS; or, the Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh." To the great majority of readers this book will present itself, at first, as a farrago of the wildest nonsense; without connexion, coherence, or purpose,-a very chaos of incomprehensible ravings. Others will be reminded of The Doctor, Tristram Shandy, Gulliver, Pantagruel, and similar eccentricities in literature, that in a strange and fantastic garb envelope some meaning, the discovery of which is worth the labour of unfolding. But to the reader of the delicate and sugared monthly, the devourer of "the last" new novel; to the hard, shrewd man of business, whose faith is in his ledger, and whose philosophy is in his commercial list; and to the religionist, who has passively received the traditionary teachings of the past without challenge or query, and never dreamed of misgiving or doubt regarding them,-to all such, the book can have little meaning or

value. It describes a process through which they have never passed, and with whose throes of anguish they can have no sympathy. A man must have trodden the same dark path with the author,-must have encountered the same shapes of mockery and terror, and hung above the same yawning abysses of despair,-before he can understand this book. But if he has ever felt the foundations of his early belief begin to crumble beneath his feet; if he has ever been environed by a legion of grinning and mocking fiends, each plucking from him a portion of the faith he has prized as his life, and yet jeering him with its loss; if he has ever seen the blank abyss of skepticism yawn horribly before him, without a ray to illumine its depths; if the whole energy of his nature has been concentrated into one passionate cry for light! and he has been ready to sit down and weep in utter desolation, because the heavens above were as brass, and the earth beneath him as iron, with no breath of Heaven to cool his fevered spirit; then, indeed, will he find a terrible significance in this book, such as is found in few works in our language, except some parts of Bunyan, and perhaps portions of that strange but powerful poem, Festus. Sartor Resartus is a spiritual auto-biography. Its quaint designation, "the Tailor Retailored," is drawn from the general scope of the volume, which is, to show the difference between form and substance, the clothing of truth and truth itself; to illustrate the effect that outward forms have upon the mass of mankind, and the struggle of the spirit that attempts to pierce their surface; and, in the great topics of thought, to discriminate the absolute and changeless from the relative and contingent, and recognize the eternal truth and infinite agency that underlie all phenomena. All knowledge being confined to phenomena, the philosophy and religion of each age are simply the garments in which the absolute and eternal truth presents itself to the mind of that age; while those who construct and promulgate opinions on these subjects, are the Sartores,—the manufacturers of these phenomenal conceptions. The forms of thought and action in each generation are the clothes of that generation; while each individual of it is weaving for himself a garment of mingled hue in this life, and a robe of eternal glory or a shroud of eternal gloom in the life to

come.

The book is evidently designed to give a sketch of the author's history, with some of his peculiar views on the great problems of philosophy and religion. The form and style of the auto-biography were perhaps suggested by some of the wild and wonderful creations of Richter-of whom there seems to be, all through the work, a conscious or unconscious imitation. The writer appears first as the editor of extracts from a volume on the Origin and Influence of Clothes, by Herr

Diogenes Von Teufelsdröckh, Professor of Allerlei-Wissenschaft (all sorts of things) in the University of Weissnichtwo, (nobody knows where;) published by Stillschweigen and Co., (Silence and Co.,) and sent to him by his German friends, to be rendered into English. After sundry personal reminiscences of this pseudo Professor, the editor receives six paper bags of biographical and other documents illustrative of the life and opinions of the mysterious Teufelsdröckh; each bag marked with one of the six southern signs of the Zodiac, and despatched to the editor by the Boswellian friend of the illustrious Professor, the Hofrath Heuschrecke, (the Counsellor Grasshopper.) From these materials he undertakes to present his life and opinions, in three books. This mystic Professor personates our author; and in the school and university life, the wanderings, the communings with "the great dumb mountains;" in the doubts, misgivings, and final repose of his mind on certain great truths; and in the quaint, angular glances that he gives at human life, we have a sketch of the spiritual history of Thomas Carlyle. When it is recollected that this is not a mere fantastic fiction,-the work of a sneering Swift, or a filthy Rabelais,-but the actual history of a soul grappling earnestly with the great problems of its being, and seeking to wring from them a solution, in the agony of despairing doubt, the book becomes a record of most touching and melancholy interest,-a Pilgrim's Progress, in a century of doubt, denial, and indifference.

The essence of the first book may be gathered from a paragraph in the chapter, "Prospective:"

"All visible things are emblems: what thou seest is not there on its own account, strictly taken, is not there at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some idea and body it forth. Hence Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably significant. Clothes, from the King's mantle downward, are emblematic, not of want only, but of a manifold cunning Victory over Want. On the other hand, all emblematic things are properly Clothes, thought-woven and hand-woven. Men are properly said to be clothed with Authority, clothed with Beauty, with Curses, and the like. Nay, if you consider it, what is Man himself, and his whole terrestrial Life, but an emblem; a Clothing or visible Garment for that divine ME of his, cast hither like a light particle down from Heaven? Thus he is said also to be clothed with a Body. Why multiply instances? It is written, The Heavens and the Earth shall fade away like a Vesture; which indeed they are,--the Timevesture of the Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly exists, whatsoever represents Spirit to Spirit, is properly a Clothing, a suit of Raiment, put on for a season, and to be laid off. Thus, the essence of all Science lies in the PHILOSOPHY OF CLOTHES."

These quotations will be perfectly intelligible to all who are acquainted with the questions discussed by the various schools of philosophy in the present day.