be here.

The widow was not able to accept this graceful invitation, but members of
the family were present.

The Hall was crowded with a representative audience. James G. Blaine,
Speaker of the House, presided, assisted by Vice-President Colfax.
President Grant and his Cabinet, Judges of the Supreme Court, Governors
of States, and other dignitaries were present in person or by proxy. In
front of the main gallery an oil portrait of Morse had been placed, and
around the frame was inscribed the historic first message: "What hath God
wrought."

After the opening prayer by Dr. William Adams, Speaker Blaine said:--

"Less than thirty years ago a man of genius and learning was an earnest
petitioner before Congress for a small pecuniary aid that enabled him to
test certain occult theories of science which he had laboriously evolved.
To-night the representatives of forty million people assemble in their
legislative hall to do homage and honor to the name of 'Morse.' Great
discoverers and inventors rarely live to witness the full development and
perfection of their mighty conceptions, but to him whose death we now
mourn, and whose fame we celebrate, it was, in God's good providence,
vouchsafed otherwise. The little thread of wire, placed as a timid
experiment between the national capital and a neighboring city, grew and
lengthened and multiplied with almost the rapidity of the electric
current that darted along its iron nerves, until, within his own
lifetime, continent was bound unto continent, hemisphere answered through
ocean's depths unto hemisphere, and an encircled globe flashed forth his
eulogy in the unmatched elements of a grand achievement.

"Charged by the House of Representatives with the agreeable and honorable
duty of presiding here, and of announcing the various participants in the
exercises of the evening, I welcome to this hall those who join with us
in this expressive tribute to the memory and to the merit of a great
man."

After Mr. Blaine had concluded his remarks the exercises were conducted
as follows:--

Resolutions by the Honorable C.C. Cox, M.D., of Washington, D.C.

Address by the Honorable J.W. Patterson, of New Hampshire.

Address by the Honorable Fernando Wood, of New York.

Vocal music by the Choral Society of Washington.

Address by the Honorable J.A. Garfield, of Ohio.

Address by the Honorable S.S. Cox, of New York.

Address by the Honorable N.P. Banks, of Massachusetts.

Vocal mu