That the inventor, harassed on all sides by pirates, unscrupulous men, and false friends, should, in spite of his Christian philosophy, have suffered from occasional fits of despondency, is but natural, and he must have given vent to his feelings in a letter to his true friend and able business agent, Mr. Kendall, for the latter thus strives to hearten him in a letter of April 20, 1849:—­

“You say, ‘Mrs. Morse and Elizabeth are both sitting by me.’  How is it possible, in the midst of so much that is charming and lovely, that you could sink into the gloomy spirit which your letter indicates?  Can there be a Paradise without Devils in it—­Blue Devils, I mean?  And how is it that now, instead of addressing themselves first to the woman, they march boldly up to the man?

“Faith in our Maker is a most important Christian virtue, but man has no right to rely on Faith alone until he has exhausted his own power.  When we have done all we can with pure hands and honest hearts, then may we rely with confidence on the aid of Him who governs worlds and atoms, controls, when He chooses, the will of man, restrains his passions and makes his bad designs subservient to the best of ends.

“Now for a short application of a short sermon.  We must do our best to have the Depositions and Affidavits prepared and forwarded in due time.  This done we may have Faith that we will gain our cause.  Or, if with our utmost exertions, we fail in our preparations, we shall be warranted in having Faith that no harm will come of it.

“But if, like the Jews in the Maccabees, we rely upon the Lord to fight our battles, without lifting a weapon in our defence, or, like the wagoner in the fable, we content ourselves with calling on Hercules, we shall find in the end that ‘Faith without Works is dead.’ ...  The world, as you say, is ’the world’—­a quarrelling, vicious, fighting, plundering world—­yet it is a very good world for good men.  Why should man torment himself about that which he cannot help?  If we but enjoy the good things of earth and endure the evil things with a cheerful resignation, bad spirits—­blue devils and all—­will fly from our bosoms to their appropriate abode.”

Another true and loyal friend was George Wood, associated with Mr. Kendall in Washington, from whom are many affectionate and witty letters which it would be a pleasure to reproduce, but for the present I shall content myself with extracts from one dated May 4, 1849:—­

“It does seem to me that Satan has, from the jump, been at war with this invention of yours.  At first he strove to cover you up with a F.O.G. of Egyptian hue; then he ran your wires through leaden pipe, constructed by his ‘pipe-laying’ agents, into the ground and ‘all aground.’  And when these were hoisted up, like the Brazen Serpent, on poles for all to gaze at and admire, then who so devout a worshipper as the Devil in the person of one of his children of darkness, who came forward at