Jedediah Morse (August 23, 1761-June 9, 1826) was a pioneer American educator and geographer. Called the "Father of American Geography," his son was Samuel F.B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph and the Morse Code. Jedediah Morse taught in the New Haven schools for several years, compiled his notes and published them in a successful work titled, Geography Made Easy, 1784. He set a standard for American Geography, authoring numerous books, including: The American Geography, 1789; Elements of Geography, 1795; The American Gazetteer, 1797; A New Gazetteer of the Eastern Continent, 1802; A Compendious History of New England, 1804; and Annals of the American Revolution. He also founded the New England Tract Society, 1814; The American Bible Society, 1816; and was a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1811-19.
In an "Election Sermon" given at Charleston, Massachusetts, April 25, 1799, Jedediah Morse stated:
<To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism.
I hold this to be a truth confirmed by experience. If so, it follows, that all efforts to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness.
Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.> 1761JM001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1761JM001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Jedediah Morse, April 25, 1799, in Jedediah Morse's Election Sermon given at Charleston, Mass., taken from an original in the Evans collection compiled by the American Antiquarian Society. Verna M. Hall, Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America (San Francisco: Foundation for America Christian Education, 1975), pp. v, 145. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Glory of America (Bloomington, MN: Garborg's Heart'N Home, Inc., 1991), 4.25, 8.5. Stephen McDowell and Mark Beliles, "The Providential Perspective" (Charlottesville, VA: The Providence Foundation, P.O. Box 6759, Charlottesville, Va. 22906, January 1994), Vol. 9, No. 1, p. 7.