Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872). Samuel F.B. Morse was the inventor of Morse Code. He also developed the telegraph and built the first camera in America. He was the son of Jedediah Morse, “Father of American Geography.” Samuel Morse was one of the greatest portrait painters of antiquity. He was the founder and president of the National Academy of Design. In 1831, he received the distinction of being appointed to the first chair of fine arts in America. He was Professor of Sculpture and Painting at the New York University. He erected the first telegraph wires between Baltimore and Washington D.C. in 1844. The first message sent over this new communications system would revolutionize the world. The message was four words from a verse in the Bible found in Numbers 23:23:

“What hath God Wrought!”

Samuel Morse wrote the following message to his wife during anxious days between failure and success.

“The only gleam of hope, and I cannot underrate it, is from confidence in God. When I look upward it calms my apprehensions for the future, and I seem to hear a voice saying: ‘If I clothe the lilies of the field, shall I not also clothe you?’ Here is my strong confidence, and I will wait patiently for the direction of Providence.”

When he was informed of the death of his wife; he wrote to his father:

“Oh, is it possible? Is it possible? Shall I never see my wife again? But I can not trust myself to write on this subject. I need your prayers and those of Christian friends.”

He graduated in 1910 from Yale College where he studied under the godly influence of President Timothy Dwight. Four years before his death; he gave this testimony of his faith.

“The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the evidence of the divine origin of the Bible, the grandeur and sublimity of God’s remedy for fallen man are more appreciated, and the future is illumined with hope and joy.”