The Maccabaean

together, and a platform broad enough for all Israel to foregather on it could be laid down in Zion. The one who comes to Jerusalem, or for that matter to Palestine, should be a Zionist without epithet. He must have a sense of communal values and social interests. He must be able to see the daily needs as well as the Messianic times, be they in his eyes the times of social or of religious fulfillment. He must have the faith and the optimism that will make him bend his back to work for making of the earthly Jerusalem of today a costly cornerstone of sure foundation, the city of the Lord of Hosts.

The ancient fortress of the Jebusites was worth the fight that David waged for it, and was worthy of his choice as the capital of the land of Israel. Today, infinitely enriched by the traditions of centuries, it is infinitely more worth fighting for by the descendants of David, and infinitely more worthy of being made the capital of Jewish.life. But it has to be fought for, as in the days of David, by our removing from it the blind and the lame—those who cannot see into the future and who cannot march ahead into the days that are inevitably coming. Zion the Holy City is an historical fact, and, as I sincerely believe, a future fact. It is not an actuality. “Is this the city that men called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?” Yes, Jerusalem, the unclean, the dusty, the stony, the neglected, is still, as it must ever be, a city of rare beauty, “beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth.” There is inspiration in the air with its quivering beauty, in the brilliant light of the day and the bright glow of the moon at night. There is a sense of aspiration that comes from the hills. When one lifts up one’s eyes to the mountains, one knows whence

cometh one's help. The faith that was the Psalmist's, "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people," is one that is almost inescapable to the one who has come to know and to love the city. Isaiah's profound conviction of the inviolability of Zion is a feeling that it is easy to share. It is a city of inspiration and dreams. It is instinct with energy without rush. It knows creative leisure without the inertia of the tropics. It is a city builded compactly together, yet it is suggestive of vision and perspective in its bewitching glimpses of distant hills and valleys.

But dreams and visions alone cannot maintain a people. Though not by bread alone does man live, he is equally unable to live without bread. There is one clear, re-echoing message that Jerusalem gives to her sons and daughters at this time. It is not spoken with the voice of a prophet picturing the glorious future, nor is it spoken in the voice of a tourist bemoaning the city of past neglect. It is spoken in terms of the present. Jerusalem is the city of the past. It is the city of the future. But to be true to that past and true to its future, it must be given a present. Build up the present, and the dark centuries of the past will become a memory of comforting contrast. Build up the present in order to make a worthy cradle for the glorious future. Let Zionists, therefore, hold what views they may individually as to the Jewish past and the interpretation of Jewish history; let them think nationally, culturally, politically, or religiously as they will about the Jewish future, they must unite in answering Jerusalem's cry for the work and the love of her children in the present.

I see and rejoice:In the darkness—a gleam,In the silence—a voice.In midnight—a dream!

Death was around me,Silent and cold.Heavy chains bound me,Centuries old.

What tho' I fought,What tho' I strained—Nothing was wrought,Nothing was gained.

Hopeless to fight, Useless to scheme.

* * *

In the cold night God sent'a dream.

And there I seemed to walk on sunlit hillsOf palm and olive, under glowing sky,Amid an endless sound of little rills

While smoke curled slowly from the vale hard byI lifted up my brow to meet the lightAbove the mountain-top so newly risen—

* * *

And all was chill and dreary in the night,The long, long night forever in my prison.

So, it has passed. Nothing remains But the dead Vast, Silence and chains.

Yet it will stay. Dreams cannot die. Soon dawns the day, Morning is nieh.

See! Something stirring! Silence has fled. Angels' wings whirring, Life to the dead!

I see and rejoice!—In the darkness a gleam,In silence a voice.In midnight—a dream!