Such temples it is neither in the devotion nor the faculty of
the modern Western world to conceive or construct. Carlyle knows all
this, and he falls back in loving admiration upon those old times and
their worthies, despising the filigree materials of which the men of
to-day are for the most part composed. He revels in that picture of
monastic life, also, which is preserved in the record of Jocelyn de
Brakelonde. He sees all men at work there, each at his proper
vocation;--and he praises them, because they fear God and do their
duty. He finds them the same men, although with better and devouter
hearts, as we are at this day. Time makes no difference in this
verdant human nature, which shows ever the same in Catholic
monasteries as in Puritan meeting-houses. We have a wise preachment,
however, from that Past, to the Present, in Carlyle's book, which is
one of his best efforts, and contains isolated passages which for
wisdom and beauty, and chastity of utterance, he has never exceeded.
We have no space to speak here of all his books with anything like
critical integrity.
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