Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1872-05-09
The Late Professor Morse
The Lesson of a Life time.

1uS 6SSSOu OF a Lie ClmS.
The name of Morse has been so long
among the great names of America that
it has had historical significance. And
yet, now that we know that the great
inventor lies dead, we feel as if there
was wide gap in our national life. All
the comforts and blessings that an earth
ly existence can give to the poor breath
ing body seem to have fallen to Morse.
He lived long after the appointed time.
His years were crowned with reverence
and honor and fortune. He breathed
the incense of that fame that so rarely
comes to men in their own time. We
are told that the sunshine of fame is al
ways followed by the shadows of envy.
1t was the happy fortune of Morse to
live inte that calm, reverential, heaven
tinted twilight of old age, when even
envy departs, and we feel at peace with
our generation and with God.
We can realize how long Morse re-
mained with us when we look over his
life and the events with which he was
contempOraneOus. We speak of Shelley
and Byron as we speak of Pope and
Swift, as men who belonged to far
distant past. Yet Morse was an older
man than Shelley, and but three years
younger than Byron. He was a child
when the Robespierres reigned; lad
AT school before Napoleon won Maren-
go; a man in the flush and eagerness
of life before he lost Waterloo. We are
about to celebrate the centennial ami
versary of our republic, and had Morse
lived four years longer he could have
taken part in the rejoicings as one who
had lived under all of the Presidents.
With his own eyes he has seen the re-
public grow from four millions to forty
from being an obscure, strug-
Cling nationality, to be one of the rec
ognized Powers of the globe. In our
own country he saw the rise of sla-
very, its triumph, its struggle and its
fall. One after another he has seen
grapple with the social and |
political problems generated in this
age of progress, and solve them and |
pass triumphantly on towards splen-
did destiny. While America has slowly.
surely, patiently, grandly moved on to
this destiny, to brightly opening fu-
ture, full of duties and opportunities,
he has seen revolution and change up
the thrones and traditions of |
Europe.
Morse was, perhaps, the most illus
trious American-Of his age. When we
come to measure true greatness, how
readily we pass from the confusing, bar
rem echoes Of what we call glory to
what we might call usefulness, Look
ing over the expanse OF the ages, we
think more earnestly and lovingly OF
Cadmus, who gave us the alphabet; of
Archimedes, who invented the lever; of
Euclid, with his demonstrations in ge-
ometry; of Galileo, who solved the
mysteries of the stars; of Faust, who
taught us how to print; of Watt, with
MS development of steam, than of the
orators who infiamed the pas
'ions of mankind,a and the gallant chief
aims who led mankind to war. We
decorate history with our Napoleons
md Wellingtons. But it was better for
he world that steam was demonstrated
% be an active, manageable force, than
hat French Emperor and his army
hould win the battle of Austerlitz.
We have felt kindly to that philosophy Z
which saw the consummation of human
fort in the growing of two vines
where one had grown before. For ifI
var is valOr and passion reduced to
mathematics, how much better is peace,
which gives valor and passion the ex-
lctness of algebra, and the wide, en-
'raeing scope of love and reason
Peace" says Milton, "hath her yicto-
les no less renowned than war;" and /,
when Napoleon of peace, like the dead
Horse, has passed away, and we come I
o sum up his life. we gladly see that +.
he world is better, society more gener- +,
us and enlarged, and mankind nearer
he ultimate fnlfilment of its earthly
mission, because he lived and did the
york that was in him.
A man like Morse is creation of that
philosophy by which Bacon has so long
'overned the intellect of the world. $
II the same rank of heroes of peace we
lace Franklin, Fullerton and stephen
on. The newer inventions by no
leans dim the lustre of the old ones. In
team was the natural precursor of the a
,legraph. We had an agent which n
al shown how space could be controll-
i. Morse gave us an agency by which
me was destroyed. If General WASH a
,gton had been informed that man of a
he present time would sit in his sent u
lille the words of an inaugural address
ere read ON the Pacific long before
he PRESIDENT had ceased to deliver IL c
n the Atlantic; if he could have seen h
ne United States and England united r
n ia . n Il, '