that she should choose the first message to be sent across the
wires of his Telegraph.

A glimpse of his achievement--at its crowning moment of success.

The Assembly room of the United States Supreme Court with one of the
Morse Telegraph instruments installed in it. A group of distinguished
officers and private individuals, waiting with intense interest to see
the invention tested.

With perfect calmness the Inventor took his seat at the instrument,
laid his hands on the key-board now familiar to us all, and in the
Morse code sent the message chosen by Miss Ellsworth. Slowly--steadily,
successfully he wrote the chosen words,--

"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT"

The message was instantaneously received in Baltimore by a Mr. Vail who
did not know beforehand what message was to be sent. He returned it
immediately to Washington, so that within a single moment those
inspired words were flashed back and forth through a circuit of eighty
miles.--The Telegraph system had begun to work!

A great American by inheritance, and by achievement, we do Samuel
Finley Breese Morse homage, for his ideals are those for which our
forefathers gave their lives. When that first message flashed over the
wires to Baltimore and back, the Inventor said humbly and reverently,
"The message baptizes the Telegraph with the name of its author,--for
that author is God."

DAVID FARRAGUT:

The Boy Midshipman

It was a day in late October, in the year 1812. Down the Delaware
River, came slowly sailing the frigate _Essex_, which was one of a
fleet being sent to cruise along the Atlantic coast for the protection
of American vessels from their English enemies, for 1812 was the year
when the war between England and America was declared, and for this
reason.

England had for a long time been at war with France. Any vessel going
to or from a French port was liable to be attacked by an English
man-of-war, and the English government even claimed the right to search
American vessels to see whether any English sailors were on board. And
worse than that, many American sailors were accused, and falsely, of
being English deserters and were taken from their own vessels and
forced to serve on English ships. All attempts of America to adjust
this matter peacefully were refused, and in 1812 America was obliged to
declare war against Great Britain, and in consequence a squadron was
fitted out to cruise along the Atlantic coast, to protect American
vessels