Meanwhile, through the pulpit, the schoolroom, and, more widely, through the newspapers, he scattered the seeds of the gospel of Humanity. But the spirit of intolerance and persecution, of self-seeking religionism, and of rancorous prejudice, was by no means extinct even in the great republic, and the (so-called) “religious” press united to denounce his humane teaching as well as his more liberal theology. Nor did some of his more unscrupulous opponents hesitate, in the last resort, to raise the war-cry of “infidel” and “sceptic.” These assailants he treated with contemptuous silence; but the principle of moral dietetics he defended in the newspapers with ability and vigour. In 1821 he published an essay on _Abstinence from the Flesh of Animals_, which was freely and extensively circulated. For several years his missionary labours appear to have been unproductive. In the year 1830 he made two notable converts--Dr. Sylvester Graham, who was at that time engaged as a “temperance” lecturer, and was deep in the study of human physiology; and Dr. W. Alcott. Five years later, the _Moral Reformer_ was started as a monthly periodical, which afterwards appeared under the title of the _Library of Health_. In 1838-9 the _Graham Journal_ was also published in Boston, and scientific societies were organised in many of the New England towns. The Bible was largely appealed to in the controversy, and a sermon of Metcalfe’s had an extensive circulation through the United States. With all this controversy upon his hands, he was far from neglecting his private duties, and, in fact, his health was over-taxed in the close and constant work in the schoolrooms, overcrowded and ill-ventilated as they were. In the day and night school he was constantly employed, during one half of the year, from eight in the morning until ten at night; and Sunday brought him no remission of labour. In the propagandism of his principles through the press he was not idle. The _Independent Democrat_, and, in 1838, the _Morning Star_, was printed and published at his own office--by which latter journal, in spite of the promise of support from political friends, he was a pecuniary loser to a large amount. _The Temperance Advocate_, also issued from his office, had no better success. Several years earlier, about 1820, it is interesting to note, he had published a tract on _The Duty of Abstinence from all Intoxicating Drinks_; and the founder of the Bible Christian Church in America can claim the merit of having been the first systematically to inculcate this social reform.