He was strongly attached to the forms of Quakerism, as well as to the
principles. It troubled him, when some of his children changed their
mode of dress, and ceased to say _thee_ and _thou_. He groaned when one
of his daughters appeared before him with a black velvet bonnet, though
it was exceedingly simple in construction, and unornamented by feather
or ribbon. She was prepared for this reception, and tried to reconcile
him to the innovation by representing that a white or drab-colored silk
bonnet showed every stain, and was therefore very uneconomical for a
person of active habits. "Thy good mother was a very energetic woman,"
he replied; "but she found no difficulty in keeping her white bonnet as
nice as a new pin." His daughter urged that it required a great deal of
trouble to keep it so; and that she did not think dress was worth so
much trouble. But his groan was only softened into a sigh. The fashion
of the bonnet his Sarah had worn, in that beloved old meeting-house at
Woodbury, was consecrated in his memory; and to his mind, the outward
type also stood for an inward principle. I used to tell him that I found
something truly grand in the original motive for saying _thee_ and
_thou_; but it seemed to me that it had degenerated into a mere
hereditary habit, since the custom of applying _you_ exclusively to
superiors had vanished from the English language. He admitted the force
of this argument; but he deprecated a departure from their old forms,
because he considered it useful, especially to the young, to carry the
cross of being marked and set apart from the world. But though he was
thus strict in what he required of those who had been educated as
Quakers, he placed no barrier between himself and people of other sects.
He loved a righteous man, and sympathized with an unfortunate one,
without reference to his denomination. In fact, many of his warmest and
dearest friends were not members of his own religious society.

Early in life he formed an unfavorable opinion of the effect of capital
punishment. His uncle Tatum considered it a useful moral lesson to take
all his apprentices to hear the tragedy of George Barnwell, and to
witness public executions. On one of these occasions, he saw five men
hung at once. His habits of shrewd observation soon led him to conclude
that such spectacles generally had a very hardening and bad influence on
those who witnessed them, or heard them much talked about. In riper
years, h