He was called one of the leading poets of Pueblo in 1884. A brief mention in 1885 says both he and Mrs. Chase went into the mountains for the summer. He joined the local Swedenborgian church in 1883, attached to its emphasis of a metaphorical interpretation of the Bible and stressed a mystical approach to Jesus and Christianity and its sense of Christianity was much less doctrinal that the Baptist Church of Chase's childhood. However he didn't like the church's view on the Virgin birth of Jesus, and the Denver church was wracked by doctrinal disputes five years later. About that time Chase abandoned it and all other Christian churches. He initiated a broader religious search and began to read a wide variety of books about religion; Chase read James Freeman Clarke's classic "Ten Great Religions", later said he had taken an interest in Hinduism and for a time accepted the idea of reincarnation.