The explosive truth of all religion.

March 5.

It is encouraging to know that, though every kernel of truth has been carefully swept out of our churches, there yet remains the dust of truth on their walls, so that if you should carry a light into them they would still, like some powder-mills, blow up at once.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 5, 1852

Powder-mills blow up at once. See January 7, 1853 ("I smelt the powder half a mile before I got there. Put the different buildings thirty rods apart, and then but one will blow up at a time.”); July 21, 1859 ("The canal is still cluttered with the wreck of the mills that have been blown up in times past.”)