70 MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



might appear much humbler toil and less conspicuous 

 achievement in other fields, he did not exaggerate its 

 importance. 



For myself (he wrote to his mother in September, 1855), 

 I feel that Providence points out to each of us what we are fit 

 for, and that it is our duty to follow its pointings. I try to do my 

 work in the world in the way and directions in which I feel 

 best fitted to promote human progress. I often feel how very 

 little mere intellectual enlightenment does, and wish that I had 

 more opportunity of labouring for the moral improvement of 

 individuals. So far from looking doivn upon such work as 

 Philip is carrying on, I look /// to it* He that saves a sinner 

 from the error of his ways, does a far higher work than he who 

 writes any amount of scientific books, or makes any amount of 

 scientiiic discoveries. 



The energy of Dr. Carpenter's nature, however, was not 

 without its own missionary outlets. With his earnest view 

 of life, even his social pleasures must be touched with 

 something of his favourite science. He had made the 

 acquaintance of Lord Ashburton, and both the opening 

 and the close of 1855 were spent under his roof at The 

 Grange. The guests on the second occasion included Mr. 

 and Mrs. Brookfield, with whom he afterwards became 

 intimate (Mr. Brookfield, of all his friends, being most 

 able to rouse what humour he possessed), and Mr. and 

 Mrs. Carlyle. Among these he pursued a sort of apos- 

 tolate of the microscope ; with what success, the following 

 passage from a letter to his v/ife will show : — 



To-day I came upon hun (Mr. Carlyle) alone in a walk, and 

 had the boldness to tackle him, and really got on very well, 

 by setting him to talk about Coleridge, Lamb, etc. He fired 

 out tremendously against Coleridge's self-degradation, but 



* Philip p. Carpenter was then minister of the Cairo Street Chapel, War- 

 rington. His philanthropic labours, as well as his services to conchological 

 science, are described in " Memoirs of the Life and Work of Philip Pearsall 

 Carpenter, B.A., Ph.D., ediied by Russell Lant Carpenter, B.A." 



