^66:6.7 When Christian missionaries go into the heart of Africa, where sons and daughters are supposed to remain under the control and direction of their parents throughout the lifetime of the parents, they only bring about confusion and the breakdown of all authority when they seek, in a single generation, to supplant this practice by teaching that these children should be free from all parental restraint after they have attained the age of 21.

7. LIFE IN DALAMATIA

^66:7.1 The Prince’s headquarters, though exquisitely beautiful and designed to awe the primitive men of that age, was altogether modest. The buildings were not especially large as it was the motive of these imported teachers to encourage the eventual development of agriculture through the introduction of animal husbandry. The land provision within the city walls was sufficient to provide for pasturage and gardening for the support of a population of about 20,000.

^66:7.2 The interiors of the central temple of worship and the ten council mansions of the supervising groups of supermen were indeed beautiful works of art. And while the residential buildings were models of neatness and cleanliness, everything was very simple and altogether primitive in comparison with later-day developments. At this headquarters of culture no methods were employed which did not naturally belong on Urantia.

^66:7.3 The Prince’s corporeal staff presided over simple and exemplary abodes which they maintained as homes designed to inspire and favourably impress the student observers sojourning at the world’s social centre and educational headquarters.

^66:7.4 ¶ The definite order of family life and the living of one family together in one residence of comparatively settled location date from these times of Dalamatia and were chiefly due to the example and teachings of the 100 and their pupils. The home as a social unit never became a success until the supermen and superwomen of Dalamatia led mankind to love and plan for their grandchildren and their grandchildren’s children. Savage man loves his child, but civilized man loves also his grandchild.

^66:7.5 The Prince’s staff lived together as fathers and mothers. True, they had no children of their own, but the 50 pattern homes of Dalamatia never sheltered less than 500 adopted little ones assembled from the superior families of the Andonic and Sangik races; many of these children were orphans. They were favoured with the discipline and training of these superparents; and then, after 3 years in the schools of the Prince (they entered from 13 to 15), they were eligible for marriage and ready to receive their commissions as emissaries of the Prince to the needy tribes of their respective races.

^66:7.6 ¶ Fad sponsored the Dalamatia plan of teaching that was carried out as an industrial school in which the pupils learned by doing, and through which they worked their way by the daily performance of useful tasks. This plan of education did not ignore thinking and feeling in the development of character; but it gave first place to manual training. The instruction was individual and collective. The pupils were taught by both men and women and by the two acting conjointly. One half of this group instruction was by sexes; the other half was coeducational. Students were taught manual dexterity as individuals and were socialized in groups or classes. They were trained to fraternize with younger groups, older groups, and adults, as well as to do teamwork with those of their own ages. They were also familiarized with such associations as family groups, play squads, and school classes.

^66:7.7 Among the later students trained in Mesopotamia for work with their respective races were Andonites from the highlands of western India together with representatives of the red men and the blue men; still later a small number of the yellow race were also received.

^66:7.8 ¶ Hap presented the early races with a moral law. This code was known as “The Father’s Way” and consisted of the following seven commands:

^66:7.9 1. You shall not fear nor serve any God but the Father of all.

^66:7.10 2. You shall not disobey the Father’s Son, the world’s ruler, nor show disrespect to his superhuman associates.

^66:7.11 3. You shall not speak a lie when called before the judges of the people.

^66:7.12 4. You shall not kill men, women, or children.

^66:7.13 5. You shall not steal your neighbour’s goods or cattle.

^66:7.14 6. You shall not touch your friend’s wife.

^66:7.15 7. You shall not show disrespect to your parents or to the elders of the tribe.

^66:7.16 ¶ This was the law of Dalamatia for almost 300,000 years. And many of the stones on which this law was inscribed now lie beneath the waters off the shores of Mesopotamia and Persia. It became the custom to hold one of these commands in mind for each day of the week, using it for salutations and mealtime thanksgiving.

^66:7.17 ¶ The time measurement of these days was the lunar month, this period being reckoned as 28 days. That, with the exception of day and night, was the only time reckoning known to the early peoples. The 7-day week was introduced by the Dalamatia teachers and grew out of the fact that 7 = 28/4. The significance of the number 7 in the superuniverse undoubtedly afforded them opportunity to introduce a spiritual reminder into the common reckoning of time. But there is no natural origin for the weekly period.

^66:7.18 ¶ The country around the city was quite well settled within a radius of 160 km. Immediately surrounding the city, hundreds of graduates of the Prince’s schools engaged in animal husbandry and otherwise carried out the instruction they had received from his staff and their numerous human helpers. A few engaged in agriculture and horticulture.

^66:7.19 Mankind was not consigned to agricultural toil as the penalty of supposed sin. “In the sweat of your face shall you eat the fruit of the fields” was not a sentence of punishment pronounced because of man’s participation in the follies of the Lucifer rebellion under the leadership of the traitorous Caligastia. The cultivation of the soil is inherent in the establishment of an advancing civilization on the evolutionary worlds, and this injunction was the centre of all teaching of the Planetary Prince and his staff throughout the 300,000 years which intervened between their arrival on Urantia and those tragic days when Caligastia threw in his lot with the rebel Lucifer. Work with the soil is not a curse; rather is it the highest blessing to all who are thus permitted to enjoy the most human of all human activities.

^66:7.20 At the outbreak of the rebellion, Dalamatia had a resident population of almost 6,000. This number includes the regular students but does not embrace the visitors and observers, who always numbered more than 1,000. But you can have little or no concept of the marvellous progress of those faraway times; practically all of the wonderful human gains of those days were wiped out by the horrible confusion and abject spiritual darkness which followed the Caligastia catastrophe of deception and sedition.

8. MISFORTUNES OF CALIGASTIA

^66:8.1 In looking back over the long career of Caligastia, we find only one outstanding feature of his conduct that might have challenged attention; he was ultraindividualistic. He was inclined to take sides with almost every party of protest, and he was usually sympathetic with those who gave mild expression to implied criticism. We detect the early appearance of this tendency to be restless under authority, to mildly resent all forms of supervision. While slightly resentful of senior counsel and somewhat restive under superior authority, nonetheless, whenever a test had come, he had always proved loyal to the universe rulers and obedient to the mandates of the Constellation Fathers. No real fault was ever found in him up to the time of his shameful betrayal of Urantia.