The Garden of Eden

73:4.1When Ma­te­rial Sons, the bi­o­logic up­lifters, be­gin their so­journ on an evo­lu­tion­ary world, their place of abode is of­ten called the Gar­den of Eden be­cause it is char­ac­ter­ized by the flo­ral beauty and the botanic grandeur of Eden­tia, the con­stel­la­tion cap­i­tal. Van well knew of these cus­toms and ac­cord­ingly pro­vided that the en­tire penin­sula be given over to the Gar­den. Pas­turage and an­i­mal hus­bandry were pro­jected for the ad­join­ing main­land. Of an­i­mal life, only the birds and the var­i­ous do­mes­ti­cated species were to be found in the park. Van’s in­struc­tions were that Eden was to be a gar­den, and only a gar­den. No an­i­mals were ever slaugh­tered within its precincts. All flesh eaten by the Gar­den work­ers through­out all the years of con­struc­tion was brought in from the herds main­tained un­der guard on the main­land.

73:4.2The first task was the build­ing of the brick wall across the neck of the penin­sula. This once com­pleted, the real work of land­scape beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and home build­ing could pro­ceed un­hin­dered.

73:4.3A zo­o­log­i­cal gar­den was cre­ated by build­ing a smaller wall just out­side the main wall; the in­ter­ven­ing space, oc­cu­pied by all man­ner of wild beasts, served as an ad­di­tional de­fense against hos­tile at­tacks. This menagerie was or­ga­nized in twelve grand di­vi­sions, and walled paths led be­tween these groups to the twelve gates of the Gar­den, the river and its ad­ja­cent pas­tures oc­cu­py­ing the cen­tral area.

73:4.4In the prepa­ra­tion of the Gar­den only vol­un­teer la­bor­ers were em­ployed; no hire­lings were ever used. They cul­ti­vated the Gar­den and tended their herds for sup­port; con­tri­bu­tions of food were also re­ceived from near-by be­liev­ers. And this great en­ter­prise was car­ried through to com­ple­tion in spite of the dif­fi­cul­ties at­ten­dant upon the con­fused sta­tus of the world dur­ing these trou­blous times.

73:4.5But it was a cause for great dis­ap­point­ment when Van, not know­ing how soon the ex­pected Son and Daugh­ter might come, sug­gested that the younger gen­er­a­tion also be trained in the work of car­ry­ing on the en­ter­prise in case their ar­rival should be de­layed. This seemed like an ad­mis­sion of lack of faith on Van’s part and made con­sid­er­able trou­ble, caused many de­ser­tions; but Van went for­ward with his plan of pre­pared­ness, mean­time fill­ing the places of the de­sert­ers with younger vol­un­teers.