ormed a resolution not to renew it. When
he recovered, it cost him a good deal of physical annoyance to conquer
the long-settled habit; but he had sufficient strength of mind to
persevere in the difficult task, and he never again used tobacco in any
form. Speaking of this to his son Edward, he said, "The fact is, whoever
cures himself of any selfish indulgence, becomes a better man. It may
seem strange that I should set out to improve at my age; but better late
than never."

He was eminently domestic in his character. Perhaps no man ever lived,
who better enjoyed staying at home. He loved to invite his
grand-children, and write them pleasant little notes about the
squirrel-pie, or some other rarity, which he had in preparation for
them. He seldom went out of his own family circle, except on urgent
business, or to attend to some call of humanity. He was always very
attentive in waiting upon his wife to meeting, or elsewhere, and spent a
large portion of his evenings in reading to her from the newspapers, or
some book of Travels, or the writings of early Friends. No man in the
country had such a complete Quaker library. He contrived to pick up
every rare old volume connected with the history of his sect. He had a
wonderful fondness and reverence for many of those books. They seemed to
stand to him in the place of old religious friends, who had parted from
his side in the journey of life. There, at least, he found Quakerism
that had not degenerated; that breathed the same spirit as of yore.

I presume that his religious opinions resembled those of Elias Hicks.
But I judged so mainly from incidental remarks; for he regarded
doctrines as of small importance, and considered theology an
unprofitable topic of conversation. Practical righteousness, manifested
in the daily affairs of life, was in his view the sum and substance of
religion. The doctrine of the Atonement never commended itself to his
reason, and his sense of justice was disturbed by the idea of the
innocent suffering for the guilty. He moreover thought it had a
pernicious tendency for men to rely on an abstract article of faith, to
save them from their sins. With the stern and gloomy sects, who are
peculiarly attracted by the character of Deity as delineated in the Old
Testament, he had no sympathy. The Infinite One was ever present to his
mind, as a loving Father to all his children, whether they happened to
call him by the name of Brama, Jehovah, God, or Allah.