gloomy anticipations, assuring him that the clouds were not nearly so
dark as they appeared.

Always imbued with a spirit of lofty patriotism, Morse never failed, even
in the midst of overwhelming cares, to give voice to warnings which he
considered necessary. Replying to an invitation to be present at a public
dinner he writes:--

GENTLEMEN,--I have received your polite invitation to join with you in
the celebration of the birthday of Washington. Although unable to be
present in person, I shall still be with you in heart.

Every year, indeed every day, is demonstrating the necessity of our being
wide awake to the insidious sapping of our institutions by foreign
emissaries in the guise of friends, who, taking advantage of the very
liberality and unparalleled national generosity which we have extended to
them, are undermining the foundations of our political fabric,
substituting (as far as they are able to effect their purpose) on the one
hand a dark, cold and heartless atheism, or, on the other, a disgusting,
puerile, degrading superstition in place of the God of our fathers and
the glorious elevating religion of love preached by his Son.

The American mind, I trust, is now in earnest waking up, and no one more
rejoices at the signs of the times than myself. Twenty years ago I hoped
to have seen it awake, but, alas! it proved to be but a spasmodic yawn
preparatory to another nap. If it shall now have waked in earnest, and
with renewed strength shall gird itself to the battle which is assuredly
before it, I shall feel not a little in the spirit of good old Simeon--
"Now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy
salvation."