The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau

Most people who care about nature cannot help but use religious language to describe their experience of it. We can trace many of these conceptions of nature and holiness directly to influential nineteenth-century writers, especially Henry David Thoreau (18171862).

As the most comprehensive study of Thoreau's spirituality from a Christian perspective, The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau is the first to seriously examine connections between Thoreau's religious practices and those of his Protestant forebears. While a few writers have considered the relation between Thoreau's thought and Christian doctrine, this book instead outlines the links between Thoreau's religious practices (such as keeping a spiritual journal, studying nature, and walking) and those of earlier New England Protestants. It is also one of the first books to treat spiritual journals as a distinct literary genre.