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           PROFESSOR MORSE AND THE TELEGRAPH.                 589
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[[Morse Code: g h t.]]
leading public men of the nation as vice presidents. Impressive speeches were uttered. The last scene was most impressive of all. It was announced that the telegraphic instrument before the audience was then in connection with every other one of the 10,000 instruments in America, when Miss Cornell, a young telegraphic operator, touched its key and sent this message to all: "GREETINGS AND THANKS TO THE TELEGRAPH FRATERNITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST, ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD-WILL TO MEN." Then the venerable inventor was conducted to the instrument, touched the key, and the sounder struck "S.F.B MORSE." A storm of enthusiasm swept through the house for some moments, as the audience arose, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs, and old men and young men alike cheering as with one voice.
    Professor Morse appeared in public for the last time on the 22nd of February, 1872, when he unveiled the statue of Franklin erected in Printing House Square, in New York. After that his health rapidly declined, and on Tuesday, the 2d of April, 1872, his spirit passed out peacefully from its earthly tabernacle to the bosom of God. On the 5th his remains were carried in a casket to the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, when the glorious Anthem, "I heard a voice from Heaven," was sung, a funeral discourse was pronounced by Rev. William Adams, D.D, and a concluding prayer by Rev. B. F Wheeler, pastor of the church at Poughkeepsie, of which the deceased was a member. Then the remains were taken to Greenwood Cemetery. Just before his death, Professor Morse's physicians, uncertain as to the exact nature of his disease, raised him up and sounded his chest with finger tappings. The Professor roused from the stupor in which he had been lying, when one of the physicians said, "This is the way we telegraph." The dying man comprehended the point, and replied, "Very good-very good." These were his last words.
    Professor Morse was twice married. His first wife, as we have seen, died in 1825. His second wife (still living) was Sarah Elizabeth Griswold, a grand-daughter of the late Arthur Breese, of Utica, and Catherine Lavingston, of Poughkeepsie, to whom he was married in the summer of 1848.
    The Professor's private life was one of almost unalloyed happiness. After his last marriage, his summer home was on the banks of the Hudson just below Poughkeepsie, called "Locust Grove," and his winter residence was always sunshine to his family, and his influence in society was benign. He was, in the highest sense of the term, a Christian gentleman, a faithful disciple of the Redeemer, and a fine exemplar of dutiful obedience to every law in all the relations of life, domestic and social.
    The invention of Professor Morse is a gift to mankind of immeasurable value. It has already widened the range of human thought and action, and given to literature a truer catholicity and humanity, whilst more than any other agency it is binding the nations of the earth in a brotherhood which seems like the herald of the millennial era. Its silent forces are working with awful majesty in the realm of mind, reducing the ideals of the old mythologies to practice and beneficent results.
    Has inspiration ceased? Have revelations come to an end? Was that first message a chance communication, or a direct inspiration of the Almighty? "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT!"