which a stream of influence should flow all over the scattered nation, and waves of Jewish inspiration and knowledge should spread in all directions, making the little land a metropolis of Judaism in religion and life――was not this Zionist programme laid down and carried out in the intentions and achievements of _Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah_? In after years Jews went forth as emigrants to all parts of the world. They submitted to the laws of the various countries, and were capable of adapting themselves to surrounding circumstances. Wherever they went they carried with them their God and their traditions, their literature and their customs, nor did they ever forget the old, holy home which they had left. This faithfulness is one of the most stirring and pathetic facts in the history of the world; it is the most sublime fact in the history of the Jews. The Jews never forgot _Jerusalem_, its ruined walls, its shattered palaces, its former grandeur, its old associations; they never forgot the old land and its desolate fields. This feeling never depended on individual Jews, it depended on the whole Jewish nation. The Jews never forgot their old nationality. They never forgot that they were a nation apart, distinct in morality, in learning, in literature, in social arrangements and in agriculture: a civilized nation at a time when Western civilization was still unknown. For two thousand years after the loss of political independence, they believed with passionate intensity in their future as a nation in Palestine. While they were mingling with the world around them, no temptation, whether the hope of material success or the still more irresistible force of emulation, could withdraw them from their allegiance to the future. No inducement, however powerful, no suffering, no martyrdom, no agony could make them forget the sacred debt they owed to God, to their ancestors and to themselves. They always considered it their duty to be members of one great family, bound together not alone by a common past, but by a community of undying ideas, aspirations, and hopes for a national future. They remained unmistakably true to their duty. This strong conviction is deeply rooted in the hearts of millions of Jews. It is an unbroken chain stretching from the dawn of Jewish history through all generations from _Abraham_ to our own times. This unshaken belief, which kept and still keeps together the Jews all over the world, is the quintessence of all Jewish prophecies, from _Moses_ to _Malachi_, of all Jewish teaching, from the men of the _Great Synod_ to _Maimonides_ and to the present day.¹ ¹ See Appendix i: _The Hebrew Prophets and the Idea of National Restoration_.