The Power of Love by Henry D. Thoreau

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 6, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 48.

The Power of Love

By Henry D. Thoreau

LOVE is the wind, the tide, the wave, the sunshine. Its power is incalculable; it is many horse-power. It never ceases, it never slacks; it can move with the globe without a resting-place; it can warm without fire; it can feed without meat; it can clothe with-out garments; it can shelter without roof; it can make a paradise within, which will dispense with a paradise without. But, the wisest men in all ages have labored to publish this force, and every human heart is, sooner or later, more or less made to feel it, yet how little is actually applied to social ends! True, it is the power of all successful social machinery; but as in physics we have made the elements do only a little drudgery for us, steam to take the place of a few horses, wind of a few oars, water of a few cranks and hand-mills,—as the mechanical forces have not yet been generally applied to make the physical world answer to the ideal,—so the power of love has been but meanly and sparingly applied, as yet.—Henry D. Thoreau.