"This life is a state of discipline; a school in which to form character. There is not an event that comes to our knowledge, not a sentence that we read, not a person with whom we converse, not an act of our lives, in short, not a thought which we conceive, but is acting upon and moulding that character into a shape of good or evil; and, however unconscious we may be of the fact, a thought, casually conceived in the solitariness and silence and darkness of midnight, may so modify and change the current of our future conduct that a blessing or a curse to millions may flow from it.
"All our thoughts are mysteriously connected with good or evil. Their very habits, too, like the habits of our actions, are strengthened by indulgence, and, according as we indulge the evil or the good, our characters will partake of the moral character of each. But actions proceed from thoughts; we act as we think. Why should we, then, so cautiously guard our actions from impropriety while we give a loose rein to our thoughts, which so certainly, sooner or later, produce their fruits in our actions?
"God in his wisdom has separated at various distances sin and the consequence of sin. In some instances we see a sin instantly followed by its fruits, as of revenge by murder. In others we see weeks and months and years, aye, and ages, too, elapse before the fruits of a single act, the result, perhaps, of a single thought, are seen in all their varieties of evil.
"How long ere the fruits of one sin in Paradise will cease to be visible in the moral universe?
"If this reasoning is correct, I shall but cheat myself in preserving a good moral outward appearance to others if every thought of the heart, in the most secret retirement, is not carefully watched and checked and guarded from evil; since the casual indulgence of a single evil thought in secret may be followed, long after that thought is forgotten by me, and when, perhaps, least expected, by overt acts of evil.
"Who, then, shall say that in those pleasures in which we indulge, and which by many are called, and apparently are, innocent, there are not laid the seeds of many a corrupt affection? Who shall say that my innocent indulgence at the card table or at the theatre, were I inclined to visit them, may not produce, if not in me a passion for gaming or for low indulgence, yet in others may encourage these views to their ruin?
"Besides, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners,' and even places less objectionable are studiously to be avoided. The soul is too precious to be thus exposed.
"Where then is our remedy? In Christ alone. 'Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Search me, O God, and know my thoughts; try me and know my ways and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way which is everlasting.'"
This is but one of many expressions of a similar character which are to be found in the letters and notes, and which are illuminating.
Morse was now making ready for another trip to Europe. He had hoped, when he returned home in 1815, to stay but a year or two on this side and then to go back and continue his artistic education, which he by no means considered complete, in France and Italy. We have seen how one circumstance after another interfered to prevent the realization of this plan, until now, after the lapse of fourteen years, he found it possible. His wife and his parents were dead; his children were being carefully cared for by relatives, the daughter Susan by her mother's sister, Mrs. Pickering, in Concord, New Hampshire, and the boys by their uncle, Richard C. Morse, who was then happily married and living in the family home in New Haven.