Contemporaries of Thoreau say he was guarded about his solitude, careful about who he would allow to accompany him on his afternoon walks. To Thoreau, his walk was his science, and his science was a spiritual inquiry and endeavor. But the beating heart that comes across in his works puts the tales of a cold or aloof Thoreau into perspective. In his lectures and published writings, he was always generous. He never wrote "no admittance" on his gate. This book connects Thoreau's words with sentiments found in the writings of the apostle Paul, the church fathers, and in the parables and sermons of Christ himself, referents rarely found in indexes of even the most thorough biographies. Looking at these references in some detail is essential if we are to have a better picture of the more spiritual aspects of Thoreau's thinking, a fuller picture of his literary achievements, and even a glimpse into some of the choices he made in his life. The challenge is not to discern what Thoreau thought of "Christianity." That was mostly negative. The challenge, rather, is to discern what Thoreau thought it meant to follow Christ. To answer this question, it is necessary not only to study Thoreau's words but also to look to his life and to the New Testament on which he so heavily relied. In an essay published while he was living at Walden Pond, Thoreau wrote that "Christ... yet awaits a just appreciation from literature." What Thoreau meant by a "just appreciation" we do not have to guess. The answer, this book argues, can be found hidden in plain sight in the pages of Thoreau's greatest works.
