Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - Volume I. | Page 9

bulldog tenacity, which led him to stick to one idea through discouragements and disappointments which would have overwhelmed a weaker nature.
The following extracts are from a long letter from his mother dated November 23, 1805:--
"I am fearful, my son, that you think a great deal more of your amusements than your studies, and there lies the difficulty, and the same difficulty would exist were you in college.
"You have filled your letter with requests to go into college and an account of a gunning party, both of which have given us pain. I am truly sorry that you appear so unsteady as by your own account you are....
"You mention in the letter you wrote first that, if you went into college, you and your chum would want brandy and wine and segars in your room. Pray is that the custom among the students? We think it a very improper one, indeed, and hope the government of college will not permit it. There is no propriety at all in such young boys as you having anything to do with anything of the kind, and your papa and myself positively prohibit you the use of these things till we think them more necessary than we do at present....
"You will remember that you have promised in your first letter to be an economist. In your last letter you seem to have forgotten all about it. Pray, what do your gunning parties cost you for powder and shot? I beg you to consider and not go driving on from one foolish whim to another till you provoke us to withdraw from you the means of gratifying you in anything that may be even less objectionable than gunning."
These exhortations seem to have had, temporarily, at least, the desired effect, for in a letter to his parents dated December 18, 1805, young Morse says: "I shall not go out to gun any more, for I know it makes you anxious about me."
The letters of the parents to the son are full of pious exhortations, and good advice, and reproaches to the boy for not writing oftener and more at length, and for not answering every question asked by the parents. It is comforting to the present-day parent to learn that human nature was much the same in those pious days of old, differing only in degree, and that there is hope for the most wayward son and careless correspondent.
The following letters from the elder Morse I shall include as being of rather more than ordinary interest, and as showing the breadth of his activity.
CHARLESTOWN, December 23, 1806. To THE BISHOP OP LONDON,
REV'D AND RESPECTED SIR,--I presume that it might be agreeable to you to know the precise state of the property which originally belonged to the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia.
I have with some pains obtained the law of that State respecting this singular business.
I find that it destroys the establishment and asserts that "all property belonging to the said (Protestant Episcopal) Church devolved on the good people of this Commonwealth (i.e., Virginia) on the dissolution of the British Government here, in the same degree in which the right and interest of the said Church was therein derived from them," and authorizes the overseers of the poor of any county "in which any glebe land is vacant, or shall become so by the death or removal of any incumbent, to sell all such land and appurtenances and every other species of property incident thereto to the highest bidder"--"Provided that nothing herein contained shall authorize an appropriation to any religious purpose whatever."
I make no comments on the above. I believe no other State in the Union has, in this respect, imitated the example of Virginia.
I take the liberty to send you a few small tracts for your acceptance in token of my high respect for your character and services.
Believe me, sir, unfeignedly,
Your obedient servant, J. MORSE.
December 26, 1806. LINDLEY MURRAY ESQ.,
DEAR SIR,--Your polite note and the valuable books accompanying it, forwarded by our friend Perkins, of New York, have been duly and gratefully received.
You will perceive, by the number of the "Panoplist" enclosed, that we are strangers neither to your works nor your character. It has given me much pleasure as an American to make both more extensively known among my countrymen.
I have purchased several hundred of your spelling books for a charitable society to which I belong, and they have been dispersed in the new settlements in our country, where I hope they will do immediate good, besides creating a desire and demand for more. It will ever give me pleasure to hear from you when convenient. Letters left at Mr. Taylor's will find me.
I herewith send you two or three pamphlets and a copy of the last edition of my "American Gazetteer" which I pray you