A most unusual event occurred on May 24, 1844, which the Chamber of the United States Supreme Court hosted. It was not a court case, but an important invention was on trial for all to see. Congressmen, senators, and various government officials had crowded into the room to watch the proceedings.

A white-haired gentleman named Samuel Morse stood at a table. Before him was displayed a collection of wires, an electrical switch, and papers. The invention being demonstrated was called a telegraph. Meanwhile, thirty-eight miles away in the city of Baltimore, Morse’s assistant—a young man named Alfred Vail—sat at a similar table at a railroad station.

Morse slowly addressed the Washington, D.C., audience, informing them that they were about to witness a message sent over wires. The message would travel as fast as lightning, joining two cities as though there was no distance at all between them!

Since ancient times, men have sought faster and faster methods to transmit news, messages, and information. Chariots sped across the deserts of northern Africa in the days of the Egyptian empire, telling news of great battles and the assassinations of the Pharaoh. Dromedaries carried news across the vast deserts of Arabia during the days of the patriarchs. Ships transported the letters of the Apostle Paul across the Mediterranean Sea. The decisions of church councils were sent across the Alps by swift runners who carried the letters in leather pouches.

Occasionally, new innovations, such as smoke signals, flashing mirrors, and signal flags, were used to convey messages from point to point in a faster way. But on this day in 1844, a new method of instantaneous communication would change the world forever.

A young girl named Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of the U.S. Patent Commissioner, had been invited to write down any message of her choice on a slip of paper. After doing so, she handed the paper to Samuel Morse, a message he saw only at that moment. On the paper she had written a quotation from Numbers 23:23, “What hath God wrought?”

Samuel Morse sat down at the desk and his hand went to the button of the electrical switch. He began tapping out a message using the famous code that now bears his name. The message began with a W ( ● ▬ ▬ ) and was tapped out in a matter of seconds by the practiced hand of the telegraph operator. The message was delivered to Baltimore. In an instant, the clatter was echoed again from Alfred Vail in Baltimore: “What hath God wrought?”

Admiration and applause filled the room. Morse had done it! The telegraph would change communication forever. Within six years of the sending of this message from Washington to Baltimore, 12,000 miles of telegraph lines crisscrossed the North American continent. Messages could travel vast distances in an instant, and communication of great events were now relayed in a matter of seconds!

Actually, Samuel Morse did not invent the telegraph. He only perfected the methods and materials so that the machine would be practical. But God used this man in a mighty way to demonstrate the power of His own omnipresence. Once man could send a message in a moment to a distant city, he could begin to realize how marvelous it is that God is everywhere at once. His truth knows no boundaries, and His Gospel can be taken to the furthest reaches of the globe.

Samuel Morse was the firstborn son of a preacher. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on April 27, 1791, when the War for Independence was not yet over. Morse attended Yale College and set out to be an artist. His first major painting was Landing of the Pilgrims.

The artistic skill demonstrated by young Morse drew the interest of other artists. He crossed the Atlantic to England to study art at the Royal Academy. There, the young man studied the works of Michelangelo and Raphael and grew in his technique.

Samuel Morse spent the duration of the War of 1812 in England. Upon the war’s end, he returned to the United States and sought to make a living in Charleston, South Carolina, as a professional portrait painter. In addition to taking commissions for portraits of private citizens, he painted a well-received portrait of former President John Adams.

In 1818, Samuel Morse married a young lady named Lucretia Walker. The Lord blessed the couple with three children: Susan, Charles, and James. Yet, in spite of his skill and good reception, Samuel Morse struggled to earn a living as an artist in Charleston sufficient to support his family.

As a result, Morse moved his family back to New England, settling in New Haven, Connecticut. He painted a very excellent portrait of General Lafayette and another of President James Monroe that gained him recognition and fame. He also painted The House of Representatives, an art piece which depicted statesmen working at their congressional desks by candlelight. The painting commanded international respect.

In the midst of improving financial support, Morse was grief-stricken when his young wife suddenly died, shortly after the birth of their third child. A while later, the lonely widower left his children in the care of family members and traveled to Europe. There he further honed his painting skills and visited historical sites and museums across France, Switzerland, and Italy.

While in Europe, Morse also became aware of scientific achievements, such as the daguerreotype (early photography) and experiments in electromagnetism. He was intrigued by the possibility of transmitting messages over long distances by means of electrical energy transmitted over wires.

The Europeans developed a telegraphic system in the 1830s that used underground wires. The European systems degraded over time, and the cost of laying wire was very expensive. Samuel Morse and a handful of colleagues, such as Leonard Gale, a chemist, and the aforementioned Alfred Vail, worked on overcoming these problems. They perfected a system of relays by which the current could be reinforced as the signal traveled over long distances. They also decided to mount their wire on poles rather than running them underground, cutting down on the need for insulation.

After a long struggle in obtaining funding, Morse finally could proceed with his telegraph project. The financial assistance allowed him to finish the test lines from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. The new communication technology received a dramatic boost even before telegraphing the famous first official message, “What hath God wrought?” An unfinished telegraph line had wired the news of the nomination of Henry Clay for president. Due to this quicker communication, passengers arriving from the convention by train in D.C. were surprised to discover that those at the Capitol already knew of Clay’s nomination!

Samuel Morse’s invention was a success. After the completion of the telegraph lines, Samuel Morse lived on for another twenty-eight years. In those latter years, he was able to see the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cable in 1858, a deep-sea line of wires that conveyed instant messages across the ocean.

Also later in his life, Morse married Sarah Griswold, and over the years the couple was blessed with another four children. He was, throughout his life, a firm Christian. Morse devoted his remaining years to establishing a lecture series on the relation of the Bible to the sciences. He died in New York City in 1872, loved and honored by a grateful country. The news of his death was fittingly telegraphed across the world.

Sources and Further Reference:

Tiner, John Hudson. Artist with a Message: Samuel F.B. Morse. Milford, MI: Mott Media, 1987.