Until within a few years he had been one of the strictest of Sabbath observers.

Although never formally connected with any church, he had been a narrow and even an intolerant believer in the creed and observances of New England orthodoxy.

Words failed him in 1828 to express his abhorrence of a meeting of professed infidels: "It is impossible," he exclaimed with the ardor of a bigot, "to estimate the depravity and wickedness of those who, at the present day, reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ," etc.

A year and a half later while editing the _Genius_ in Baltimore, he held uncompromisingly to the stern Sabbatical notions of the Puritans.

A fete given to Lafayette in France on Sunday seemed to him an act of sheer religious desecration.