noon
Social worship is that by which they are all distinguished ; but this article found no place in his creed . He rigidly interpreted that precept which enjoins us , when we worship , to retire into solitude , and shut out every species of society . According to him devotion was not only a silent office , but must be performed alone . An hour at noon , and an hour at midnight were thus appropriated . At the distance of three hundred yards from his house , on the top of a rock whose sides were steep , rugged , and encumbered with dwarf cedars and stony asperities , he built what to a common eye would have seemed a summer-house . The eastern verge of this precipice was sixty feet above the river which flowed at its foot . The view before it consisted of a transparent current , fluctuating and rippling in a rocky channel , and bounded by a rising scene of cornfields and orchards .