This is the frame of the novel, which recalls the wonder-tales of the
eighteenth century. From the point of view of romantic intrigue, study
of character, and development of plot, it is a puerile work. The
interest does not reside in the romantic story. Borrowed from modern
works, the fiction rather injures Mapu's novel, which is primarily a
poem and an historical reconstruction. "The Love of Zion" is more than
an historical romance, more than a narrative invented by an imaginative
romancer--it is ancient Judea herself, the Judea of the prophets and the
kings, brought to life again in the dreams of the poet. The
reconstruction of Jewish society of long ago, the appreciation of the
prophetic life, the local color, the majesty of the descriptions of
nature, the vivid and striking figures of speech, the elevated and
vigorous style, everything is so instinct with the spirit of the Bible
that, without the romantic story, one would believe himself to be
perusing a long-lost and now recovered book of poetry of ancient Judea.

Dreamy, guileless, ignorant of the actual and complicated phenomena of
modern life, Mapu was able to identify himself with the times of the
prophets so well that he confounded them with modern times. He committed
the anachronism of transporting the humanist ideas of the Lithuanian
Maskil to the period of Isaiah. But by reason of wishing to show himself
modern, he became ancient. He was not even aware of the fact that he was
restoring the past with its peculiar civilization, its manners, and
ideas.

None the less his aim as a reformer was attained. Guided by prophetic
intuition, Mapu accomplished a task making for morality and culture. To
men given over to a degenerate asceticism, or to a mystic attitude
hostile to the present, he revealed a glorious past as it really had