Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon; look from the top of Amana . . . from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
Remembering this Song of Solomon, 800 German mystics journeyed west from Buffalo, N.Y. in 1855 to found a communistic settlement of farmers on a hill overlooking the Iowa River. They called it "Amana" (Faithfulness), and they thought that man could be faithful to God only if he were untroubled by wealth. Land was held in common; meals were eaten in community dining halls. Deeply religious but not ascetics, the Amanists lived...
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