In 1907 Wharton gave the major address at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, celebrating 300 years of English Christianity in America. He also wrote "The Way: A Devotional Book for Boys" (1909). Pepper became the first layman to lecture in theology at the Yale Divinity School, delivering the Lyman Beecher lecture in 1915 and publishing it as "A Voice from the Crowd". He strongly believed in what fellow Philadelphian Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle called "Athletic Christianity", and continued to work out sculling on the Delaware river into his old age. He also became a Master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.