“ If Nature is our mother, then God is our father. There is less love and simple, practical trust in Shakespeare and Milton. How rarely in our English tongue do we find expressed any affection for God. Certainly, there is no sentiment so rare as the love of God. ”
Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). copy citation
| Author | Henry David Thoreau |
|---|---|
| Source | A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers |
| Topic | trust love |
| Date | 1849 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4232/4232-h/4232-h.htm |
Context
“Chaucer’s remarkably trustful and affectionate character appears in his familiar, yet innocent and reverent, manner of speaking of his God. He comes into his thought without any false reverence, and with no more parade than the zephyr to his ear. If Nature is our mother, then God is our father. There is less love and simple, practical trust in Shakespeare and Milton. How rarely in our English tongue do we find expressed any affection for God. Certainly, there is no sentiment so rare as the love of God. Herbert almost alone expresses it, “ Ah, my dear God! ” “ maistry ” of his God. He even recommends Dido to be his bride,—
“ if that God that heaven and yearth made, Would have a love for beauty and goodnesse, And womanhede, trouth, and semeliness. ”” source
“ if that God that heaven and yearth made, Would have a love for beauty and goodnesse, And womanhede, trouth, and semeliness. ”” source
