“Gentlemen, you will now allow me to invite your attention to the next regular toast. God has given understanding to man to be employed for His glory in promoting the happiness of His creatures and in nothing that belongs to earth can the human understanding be more worthily employed than in the researches of science and in the works of invention.
“Science and invention may be called, perhaps not unfitly, the creators and servants of civilization. Sometimes invention by a sort of intuition of principles has grasped results and seemed to anticipate science.
“More usually science by the patient investigation of truth and the discovery of principles has prepared the way for the triumph of invention. All invention is realized science, and this is especially true of the telegraph.
“I will not fatigue your attention with ancient and modern devices for communicating intelligence at a distance, but it seems proper to notice here how many men of science, and of what various nationalities have contributed to that wonderful art and instrument by which the world is now bound in electric chains.
“Many shining names will occur to any one familiar with the history of the telegraph. Among them I can pause to mention only those of Volta, the Italian, to whose discoveries the battery is due; Oersted, the Dane, who first discovered the magnetic properties of the electric current; Ampère and Arago, the Frenchmen who prosecuted still further and most successfully similar researches.
“Then Sturgeon, the Englishman, who may be said to have made the first electric magnet, next, and not least, illustrious. Among these illustrious men, our countryman, Henry, who first showed the practicability of producing electro-magnetic effects by means of the galvanic current at distances indefinitely great, and finally Steinheil, the German, who, after the invention of the telegraph in all material parts was complete, taught, in 1837, the use of the ground as part of the circuit.
“These are some of those searchers for truth whose names will be long held in grateful memory, and not among the least of their titles to gratitude and remembrance will be the discoveries which contributed to the possibility of the modern telegraph. But these discoveries only made the telegraph possible, they offered the brilliant opportunity. There was needed a man to bring into being the new art and the new interest to which they pointed. And it is the providential distinction and splendid honor of the eminent American who is our guest to-night, that happily prepared by previous acquirements and pursuits. He was quick to seize the opportunity and give to the world the first recording telegraph; fortunate man, thus to link his name forever with the greatest wonder and the greatest benefit of the age.
“But his work was not done when in 1832 he conceived the idea and devised the plan of the first telegraph.
“Long years of patient labor and constant perseverance were needed to bring the telegraph into use. Its first message was not transmitted until 1844. Even then, and indeed before that year with something like prophetic inspiration, he grasped the future and predicted that telegraphic connection between Europe and America, which it was reserved for another distinguished American, kindred in spirit and kindred in renown and illustrious, to accomplish. Here I must pause, not, however, without uniting all your aspirations in the fervent wish that our honored guest may live long and happily to enjoy the applause, the gratitude and the reverence of mankind, which he has so honorably won.
“Gentlemen, I now give you ‘Our Guest,’ Prof. S. F. B. Morse, the man of science who explored the laws of nature, wrested electricity from her embrace and made it a missionary in the cause of human progress.”