The Garden of Eden

73:5.1At the cen­ter of the Edenic penin­sula was the ex­qui­site stone tem­ple of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the sa­cred shrine of the Gar­den. To the north the ad­min­is­tra­tive head­quar­ters was es­tab­lished; to the south were built the homes for the work­ers and their fam­i­lies; to the west was pro­vided the al­lot­ment of ground for the pro­posed schools of the ed­u­ca­tional sys­tem of the ex­pected Son, while in the “east of Eden” were built the domi­ciles in­tended for the prom­ised Son and his im­me­di­ate off­spring. The ar­chi­tec­tural plans for Eden pro­vided homes and abun­dant land for one mil­lion hu­man be­ings.

73:5.2At the time of Adam’s ar­rival, though the Gar­den was only one-fourth fin­ished, it had thou­sands of miles of ir­ri­ga­tion ditches and more than twelve thou­sand miles of paved paths and roads. There were a tri­fle over five thou­sand brick build­ings in the var­i­ous sec­tors, and the trees and plants were al­most be­yond num­ber. Seven was the largest num­ber of houses com­pos­ing any one clus­ter in the park. And though the struc­tures of the Gar­den were sim­ple, they were most artis­tic. The roads and paths were well built, and the land­scap­ing was ex­qui­site.

73:5.3The san­i­tary ar­range­ments of the Gar­den were far in ad­vance of any­thing that had been at­tempted thereto­fore on Uran­tia. The drink­ing wa­ter of Eden was kept whole­some by the strict ob­ser­vance of the san­i­tary reg­u­la­tions de­signed to con­serve its pu­rity. Dur­ing these early times much trou­ble came about from ne­glect of these rules, but Van grad­u­ally im­pressed upon his as­so­ciates the im­por­tance of al­low­ing noth­ing to fall into the wa­ter sup­ply of the Gar­den.

73:5.4Be­fore the later es­tab­lish­ment of a sew­age-dis­posal sys­tem the Eden­ites prac­ticed the scrupu­lous burial of all waste or de­com­pos­ing ma­te­rial. Amadon’s in­spec­tors made their rounds each day in search for pos­si­ble causes of sick­ness. Uran­tians did not again awaken to the im­por­tance of the pre­ven­tion of hu­man dis­eases un­til the later times of the nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth cen­turies. Be­fore the dis­rup­tion of the Adamic regime a cov­ered brick-con­duit dis­posal sys­tem had been con­structed which ran be­neath the walls and emp­tied into the river of Eden al­most a mile be­yond the outer or lesser wall of the Gar­den.

73:5.5By the time of Adam’s ar­rival most of the plants of that sec­tion of the world were grow­ing in Eden. Al­ready had many of the fruits, ce­re­als, and nuts been greatly im­proved. Many mod­ern veg­eta­bles and ce­re­als were first cul­ti­vated here, but scores of va­ri­eties of food plants were sub­se­quently lost to the world.

73:5.6About five per cent of the Gar­den was un­der high ar­ti­fi­cial cul­ti­va­tion, fif­teen per cent par­tially cul­ti­vated, the re­main­der be­ing left in a more or less nat­u­ral state pend­ing the ar­rival of Adam, it be­ing thought best to fin­ish the park in ac­cor­dance with his ideas.

73:5.7And so was the Gar­den of Eden made ready for the re­cep­tion of the prom­ised Adam and his con­sort. And this Gar­den would have done honor to a world un­der per­fected ad­min­is­tra­tion and nor­mal con­trol. Adam and Eve were well pleased with the gen­eral plan of Eden, though they made many changes in the fur­nish­ings of their own per­sonal dwell­ing.

73:5.8Al­though the work of em­bel­lish­ment was hardly fin­ished at the time of Adam’s ar­rival, the place was al­ready a gem of botanic beauty; and dur­ing the early days of his so­journ in Eden the whole Gar­den took on new form and as­sumed new pro­por­tions of beauty and grandeur. Never be­fore this time nor af­ter has Uran­tia har­bored such a beau­ti­ful and re­plete ex­hi­bi­tion of hor­ti­cul­ture and agri­cul­ture.