88 MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



round the sun ? Or does his prayer for his disciples, " that they 

 " may be one even as we are one," less earnestly move us to seek 

 to realize that unity which he came to promote, because geology 

 shows that the present surface of the globe is the resultant of a 

 vast series of changes, of which we have no trace in the Biblical 

 record, but which are yet more surely revealed to the eye of 

 science than they could have been by the most veracious contem- 

 porary narrator ? So far from being in opposition, I affirm that 

 science is in the fullest harmony with all that is essential and 

 true in Christianity ; for whilst it is every day contributing to 

 the material welfare of man, it is even more certainly benefiting 

 him by the enlargement of his intellect, the elevation of his 

 morale, and the strengthening of his power of spiritual discern- 

 ment — all which contribute their respective shares to the de- 

 velopment of his religious nature ; and, last, but by no means 

 least, it is undermining, one by one, those props on which have 

 rested those unsightly and repulsive additions built up by the 

 perverted ingenuity of theologians around the original edifice : 

 so that, when the time is at last come, the blast of common 

 sense, the flood of public opinion, shall overthrow all that has 

 its foundation in the sand, and leave in its majestic simplicity 

 and beauty that temple, founded upon a rock, in which all 

 mankind shall one day gather themselves for the worship of 

 their common Father and the recognition of their mutual 

 brotherhood as His children. 



VII. 



In the vacation of 1863, Dr. Carpenter visited his friend, 

 Professor (afterwards Sir Wyville) Thomson, at Belfast. 

 He, too, was engaged in the study of the Crinoid group, 

 and in the waters of the Belfast Lough he had successfully 

 employed the dredge. The visit was repeated in the follow- 

 ing year, but it was interrupted by the beginning of a very 

 serious illness, through which Dr. Carpenter was nursed 

 with the greatest care by his kind host and Mrs. Thomson. 

 But when he was at length able to return to London, he 



