was the end of the most beautiful natural creation that Urantia has ever harbored. The sinking was not sudden, several hundred years being required completely to submerge the entire peninsula.

We cannot regard this disappearance of the Garden as being in any way a result of the miscarriage of the divine plans or as a result of the mistakes of Adam and Eve. We do not regard the submergence of Eden as anything but a natural occurrence, but it does seem to us that the sinking of the Garden was timed to occur at just about the date of the accumulation of the reserves of the violet race for undertaking the work of rehabilitating the world peoples.

The Melchizedeks counseled Adam not to initiate the program of racial uplift and blending until his own family had numbered one-half million. It was never intended that the Garden should be the permanent home of the Adamites. They were to become emissaries of a new life to all the world; they were to mobilize for unselfish bestowal upon the needy races of earth.

The instructions given Adam by the Melchizedeks implied that he was to establish racial, continental, and divisional headquarters to be in the charge of his immediate sons and daughters, while he and Eve were to divide their time among these various world capitals as advisers and co-ordinators of the world-wide ministry of biologic uplift, intellectual advancement, and moral rehabilitation.