We know of no scripture which records the pure benignity of the gods on a New England winter night. Their praises have never been sung, only their wrath deprecated. The best scripture, after all, records but a meagre faith. Its saints live reserved and austere. Let a brave, devout man spend the year in the woods of Maine or Labrador, and see if the Hebrew Scriptures speak adequately to his condition and experience.
ATTRIBUTION:
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. “A Winter Walk” (1843), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 5, p. 183, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
