" The account of Beissel's life in Pennsylvania provides an interesting narrative, in which events, difficulties, scandals, and near-scandals in the Cloisters, are skillfully interwoven with an interpretation of the thought and practice which lay behind them. The Ephrata experiment is seen as one of the first attempts in a long line of idealistic communities in America, and the problems of the community as well as of the leader receive due consideration." [from the foreward]
