All these ideas are Hebrew, and characteristically Biblical. But the most curious fact, from our point of view, is that this work contains a description of the Ideal State on Mount Zion. Of course, the tendency is thoroughly Christian, but it is that kind of Christianity which is inspired by the Old Testament and by a sentiment of love for the old Jewish nation and the Holy Land. This book is the poetical expression of the Restoration ideas of the seventeenth century. It begins with a description of the springtime in New Jerusalem, “the city with twelve gates” (Ezekiel xlviii. 31), and “a virgin who held in her right hand a golden rod, and in her left the two tables of the Law.” The tourist-visitors, “two Englishmen and the third a Sicilian,” are told that “it is the anniversary of the founding of the city and the virgin you saw represented Zion, or, as they say, the Daughter of Zion.” “They” evidently refers to the Jews. Strangers are received with remarkable hospitality (as in Herzl’s _Altneuland_). (_p._ 86). “But Jacob, for that was the old man’s name, urged him all the more, ‘Come, come,’ said he, ‘it is a national duty with us to treat strangers with kindness, not unmindful that we too, long ago, were strangers in Egypt, and since then for a long time strangers and wanderers among all the nations of the earth. But now we call none aliens from Israel....’” (_p._ 88). “We are now very close on the fiftieth year since our long and widely-scattered nation was restored to its present wonderful prosperity.” The old Jew then explains the system of education adopted in the new country, a system of physical development and moral integrity. Joseph, who is one of the tourists and the hero of the romance, indulges in songs of Zion. (_pp._ 175‒6) “O sacred top of Solyma, How lovely is thy place Where stands the city of our King Where faithful saints rejoice and sing O mercy, love and grace! “For there our greater Temple stands With greater glory blest And there redeemed from alien lands, Brought back at last by God’s own hands, His Israel finds her rest.” Here the translator remarks: