``With respect to the religion of Israel, we find that our first ancestor was Adam. The founder of the religion was Abraham; then came Moses who established the law, and handed down the sacred writings. During the dynasty of Han (B. C. 200-A, D. 226) this religion entered China. In the second year of Hiao-tsung, of the Sung dynasty (A. D. 1164), a synagogue was erected in Kai-fung fu. Those who attempt to represent God by images or pictures do but vainly occupy themselves with empty forms. Those who honour and obey the sacred writings know the origin of all things. Eternal reason and the sacred writings mutually sustain each other in testifying whence men derived their being. All those who profess this religion aim at the practice of goodness and avoid the commission of vice.''[64] [64] Martin, ``A Cycle of Cathay,'' p. 275. Dr. Martin writes that he inquired in the market-place:-- ``Are there among you any of the family of Israel?'' ``I am one,'' responded a young man, whose face corroborated his assertion; and then another and another stepped forth until I saw before me representatives of six out of the seven families into which the colony is divided. They confessed with shame and grief that their holy and beautiful house had been demolished by their own hands. It had for a long time, they said, been in a ruinous condition; they had no money to make repairs; they had, moreover, lost all knowledge of the sacred tongue; the traditions of the fathers were no longer handed down and their ritual worship had ceased to be observed. In this state of things they had yielded to the pressure of necessity and disposed of the timbers and stones of that venerable edifice to obtain relief for their bodily wants. . . . Their number they estimated, though not very exactly, at from three to four hundred. . . . No bond of union remains, and they are in danger of being speedily absorbed by Mohammedanism or heathenism.''[65] [65] Martin, ``A Cycle of Cathay,'' pp. 275, 276, 277. There is something pathetic about that forlorn remnant of the Hebrew race. ``A rock rent from the side of Mount Zion by some great national catastrophe and projected into the central plain of China, it has stood there while the centuries rolled by, sublime in its antiquity and solitude.''[66] [66] Martin, p. 278.