114 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



began to exercise a considerable influence in Germany, 

 Eussia, Switzerland, and America. The main feature 

 of his teaching was the absolute necessity of endeav- 

 ouring to embody the moral precepts of Christ in daily 

 life, and by social reorganisation to render possible 

 a higher religious ideal than could be attained in 

 society as at present constituted. 



His views brought him into collision with the 

 ecclesiastical authorities, and he was expelled from the 

 Church, followed by a large gathering of those who 

 had adopted his views, and who were thenceforth 

 known as the " Temple Society." At a meeting of 

 the leaders in 1867, it was determined that the head- 

 quarters of the Society should be established in 

 Palestine, as a sort of pivotal centre ; about four-fifths 

 of its members, who now numbered over 5000 persons, 

 remaining, however, in the various countries of Europe 

 and in the United States, there, by strenuous moral 

 effort, to bear a witness for the new and higher life 

 which they were struggling to realise. While it was 

 felt that Christ's new kingdom should embrace all 

 countries and all races, a special significance attached 

 to the land which was to form, as it were, the corner- 

 stone upon which the new spiritual temple was to be 

 built ; and it was to the moral and material restoration 

 of that land, in the first instance, that the Temple 

 Society especially addressed itself. The members 

 believed that by setting an example of simple, honest 

 industry to the natives; by applying themselves 



