appeal to popular taste, who understood the art of speaking to the
multitude and touching them deeply. The success of the book was
impressive. In spite of the fanatical intriguers, who looked with horror
upon this profanation of the holy language, the novel made its way
everywhere, into the academies for Rabbinical students, into the very
synagogues. The young were amazed and entranced by the poetic flights
and by the sentimentalism of the book. A whole people seemed to be
reborn unto life, to emerge from its millennial lethargy. Upon all minds
the comparison between ancient grandeur and actually existing misery
obtruded itself.

The Lithuanian woods witnessed a startling spectacle. Rabbinical
students, playing truant, resorted thither to read Mapu's novel in
secret. Luxuriously they lived the ancient days over again. The elevated
love celebrated in the book touched all hearts, and many an artless
romance was sketched in outline.

But the greatest beneficiary of the new movement ushered into being by
the appearance of "The Love of Zion" was the Hebrew language, revived in
all its splendor.

"I have searched out the ancient Latin in its majestic vigor, the
German with its depth of meaning, the French full of charm and
ravishing expressions, the Russian in the flower of its youth.
Each has qualities of its own, each is crowned with beauty. But
in the face of all of them, whose voice appeals unto me? Is it
not thy voice, my dove? How pellucid is thy word, though its
music issues from the land of destruction!... The melody of thy
words sings in my ear like a heavenly harp." [Footnote: See
Brainin, "Abraham Mapu", p. 107.]