If any, who pass along at the base of Chappel Peak, on a clear day will take the foot path and ascend it to its top, its altitude probably not 200 feet above them, they will have within easy range of the eye such a landscape scene, as but few upon earth ever have the privilege of looking; and one that will greatly enthuse an admirer of nature. [pg 23] And they will be apt to feel as well as to see the appropriateness of its name. If they can sing, or preach, they will want to join with those preachers, and sing, or preach to an assembled world, seated within the incircling walls.
If you are at Galesville, ask some one to point out “Heuston's Bluff,” you need no guide, only good walking muscles, pick your way, and tug on until you reach the top. Then, after taking a general look all around you, sit down and rest you. Now, take another general sweeping birds-eye view, all around, seeing everything in the aggregate; then rest awhile, and contemplate it.
Now you are, or ought to be, prepared to itemize, or to look attentively at particular objects; and if you have our description, it will greatly assist, as well as interest you. We believe that no grander garden valley scene exists on this beautiful earth. Therefore patiently wait, don't cease your viewing, or think of leaving the place in less than two hours; or until you fully realize the “inspiration” of this masterly scene; and we have no fears, if you are anything of an admirer of the magnificent in nature, but that you will thank us a thousand times for calling your attention to it.
That heavy bold front in the garden wall beyond the mouth of Black River is “King bluff” which is now easily distinguished as the central highest point in the eastern wall, and which is just opposite of “Queen bluff,” the central highest point in the western wall of our garden, and said to be the highest land on the Mississippi river. Here, from [pg 24] Heuston's bluff, we have a better view of Black river, and its tributaries, than from our former place of observation. Now we stand as it were right over them, and can see to the “Northward and Eastward.” “Alps on Alps arise;” Decora's Peak and Mound so plainly and beautifully near; then those most beautiful cone mountains, and Chapel Peak, up Beaver creek, points for beacon lights, and charmingly beautiful scenes looming up most conspicuously. We do say that you can find many grand valley and landscape scenes on the Mississippi, and its tributaries, and we do not wonder that good writers extol them,—should wonder if they did not,—but we further say that we have the Garden; and everything considered, not only the greatest, and grandest, and best, but the only spot on earth that answers the Bible description of that notable spot, or Garden of Eden.
Moritz Engel of Dresden-Newstadt, Germany, has written a book, an octavo of 207 pages, dated Adam's and Eve's day, December 1884, entitled: “The Solution of the Paradise Question.” To a review of this book, President W. J. Warren of the Boston University, has devoted over a column in the Christian Advocate of Aug. 20, 1885. Engel claims to demolish, and doubtless does, the preceding “eighty nugatory attempts at a solution.” And as anyone can see, Dr. Warren demolishes Engel's attempt to foist his riverless “Tartarian swale in the heart of the North Syrian desert,” as the veritable Eden; in the lower end of which was his Garden, alternating between a pool or lake, caused by the rains, and filled by the torrents during the [pg 25] rainy season, and a dried up, parched, barren spot, drying up, “towards the end of May, or first of June; without a green thing,”—utterly uninhabitable,—and which Engel admits, “has always been so.”
The chief value of Engel's production, as well as Dr. Warren's North Pole Garden, is to show, (in Dr. Warren's own language.) “The imperishable interest of the Eden problem;” and to leave the subject entirely clear for me, and a calm consideration of the facts of the case as we find them. Dr. Warren, naturally, (as anyone who undertakes to do a thing and fails,) scouts the idea of anyone else doing it, or of a litteral four rivered; Garden of Eden. So have others who have failed to find it.
Engel puts in a claim of Divine inspiration directing him to the spot; and he writes with the positiveness and unreasonableness of a crank. All the inspiration we claim, is the beauty and grandeur of the scenery, and the adaptation and facsimile, or actual description of the spot, to the description given in the Bible, a Divinely inspired book, as our guide to it.
We are aware that we are living in an age of scientific speculation, of counterfeits, and humbugs. After misguided explorers have given up the search, in the Eastern Continent, a scientest, to show his skill, must throw a cloud on the possibility of finding a literal “four rivered spot,” on earth, and gives us an ingenious unaproachable North Pole Garden. A crank gives us a volcanic “Tartarian,” riverless desert as the spot, under a profession of Divine inspiration, A land speculator, [pg 26] must dress up a Florida malarial swamp as the place, to entice purchasers to his lands. Now, providentially, we are clear of all these objections. We do not have an unapproachable, frozen sea; or Tartarian volcanic region; or malarial swamp; or government, or company, lands to sell. Our Garden is principally owned by actual settlers. All the land I own, is a burial lot in the Galesville cemetery, and not for sale; and not many have money enough to purchase it.
But we have an Eden that challenges your attention; and a Garden that will awaken your admiration. Come and see! Please notice the natural youuthfulness of the region immediately around our Garden. Take about a hundred miles square,—of which our Garden is the centre,—and you will have some of the most charming mountain and valley scenery in the world, minus the mountains, or all in miniature, just such hills and valleys in which the youth most delight. A more appropriate region to surround the Garden we cannot conceive. While immediately outside of this region you enter upon a broad level country, principally prairie, of rich farming lands, indicating the next step in developed humanity, and the very beau ideal of an Eden; and as you go outward, the earth abounds in minerals, and in unlimited sources of wealth. Take a map of Palestine giving a birds-eye view of the hills and valleys, of which Jerusalem is somewhat central, and you will have a fair representation or view of the region around our Garden, and see the force of the expression, “as the hills are round about Jerusalem, so is the Lord [pg 27] round about his people,” and so are the hills round about our Garden.
Did you say as you looked down over our Garden valley, that this is too large a plat of ground for the Garden of Eden? Bless you! have you not considered that the Garden should be proportionate to the Land of Eden? Why, did you think that the Garden of Eden was only a half-acre garden patch, or small orchard? Read again your Bible on that subject. How could you get four rivers into it then, to water it, and one of them a “Euphrates” a wonderful great river? And is not the usual idea of a garden, a beautiful rich flat, or valley, like Lot's plain of Jordan? Please just think again, how God had created the whole earth for the habitation of the human family, and would he stint the allotment of the first pair? Did you think how long they lived, how many children they probably had, what a numerous family before the first pair died, numbering into the ten thousands? Did you ever give thought to the plan of settlement, of these children? Of the necessity of water thoroughfares, and the wisdom of God in locating them in some grand centre, as is this garden, in this central, wonderful water-shed in this Eden as already shown, comprising the great centre of this continent; and that when this garden should be well filled with inhabitants, by means of boats, and easy water conveyance, they could easily branch out and make settlements along the rivers? Can you grasp the mightiness of Jehovah's plan, in locating the first pair at the junction of so many rivers into one so great a river, and central to this Eden; thus naturally [pg 28] and easily to extend the settlements over so vast a region of excellent country, as this Eden—the greatest half of a continent,—and all this before the invention of wagon roads and railroads. Please give it wise thought, before deciding it so quickly.