Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-19
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
I. G.. M.

v.
Philo Laos Mills. Washington:
VIM. j. Gallery & Co.
Reviewed by Thomas Henry.
Here is a mine of rare learning gar
nered from the ends Of the earth
from archaeology, ethnology, poetry,
philosophy and theology.
Through the ages men have gone
on glamcrous pilgrimages beyond the
worlds ends for mystical guerdons. So
the conquiStadores struggled through
the Florida swamps in search for the
fountain CT perpetual youth. So Ar
thurs knights rode over bridges of fire
into enchanted lands for the Holy
Grail. And so, 20 years ago now, Fr.
Mills started cut To follow the beck
oning of a grander vision. He sought
the Garden of Eden.
Now he has published a book about
his long, strange pilgrimage to the
towers of the sunrise. The quest is
done. He has stood, he believes. at
the edge of Eden amid luminous
mountains close to the roof of the
world. He has come back to the
Mausoleum OF the Magi, as he calls
his little house in Washington, almost
surrounded by the gravestones Of two
cemeteries, It's walls hung with his
paintings OF his visions of the paradise
he sought.
FIR. Mills, accomplished painter. mu-
sician and poet, as we'll as distinguished
scholar OF Oriental languages, went into
the high Himalayas in search of an
Eden which, he was convinced, actually
existed. and still would retain some of
the landmarks by which it could be
identified from the biblical descrip-
tons. Il was not altogether a physical
quest, although it carried him for thou
sands of miles into the worlds highest
mountains. But it led also through
the. folklore of many peoples, the
earliest script and poetry of man, the
writings of the Hebrew prophets and
Christian apostles, the conclusions of
geclogists and anthropolcgists, and the
visions OF saints, mystics and poets. It
has been pilgrimage through mys-
tical realms of time as we'll as space.
FIR. Mills trail starts from Sumner
and the dawn OF human civilization,
1000 or 5000 years before Christ, when
a strange people emerged suddenly out
OF the dense darkness of mans past
and began building monuments and
leaving records on clay in Mesopotanlia.
Before them are only scattered frag-
mentS OF human history. They ap-
peared on the edge of the dark past
with most Of the institutions Of civili-
zation well developed Studying their
tablets and those Of the later Baby
lonians, FIR. Mills diScerned frag-
mentary illusions, he says, to a noun
tain paradise. It was obvious that the
SumerianS were immigrants from
somewhere, bringing with them long
tradition and developed culture. --ter
some seals similar to those of the
Sulnerians were found in the Indus
valley OF Northern India, possibly left
behind by the migrating people. It was
the trail which they might have fol-
lowed from the upper reaches of the
vale OF Cashm1re, which would have
answered the description Of a noun
tain paradise. down into Mesopotamia.
Similar written symbols recovered In
China, he believes, are proof that the
movement OF peoples was not the other
way around, but that a common stock
came out OF the Himalayas in two d.
recttons.
Then In the folk lore of Babylon.
Persia, India and China, as well as in
the iengendry of Greece, Scandinavia.
ireland and the Slavic peoples, he found
references to a mystical mountain
paradise with traces of the same de-
taiS OF the fall of men which appear
IN Genesis. All this, he maintains. Is
the result OF lingering memory in the
various divisions OF the human race of
mountain homeland from which their
ancestors were cast out. But, he be-
Ileves, the story appears In its fullest
ana correct form in Genesis, all the
other accounts being merely corrono-
rative evidence. But, he points out
the location OF Eden as given by Moses
Is somewhat vague.
One OF the difficulties Is the location
on the flve rivers described Pr
Mills points out, in the words: And A
river went forth from Paradise to water
the garden, and thence it was parted
ana became four heads"
Inc river" he says, tissues from
Eden as single stream and has no
particular name. Hence it Is certainly
Lot the Euphrates or one Of the divided
rivers. but an aboriginal stream which
ran through the land of Eden. watered
the garden, and then gave birth to four
other streams which are the four great
rivers OF the world. Now from the
earliest times the watershed of Asia was
looked upon as the source of the
heavenly rivers. The Indus figures as
the paradise river par excellence
associated with the beginning of things.
the principal waterway of early man.
The Sumerians came from the upper
Indus. The primitive Egyptians must
have hailed from there. The Persian
paradise was on or near the Indus. The
Chinese and Ttbetan heavenly kingdom
points at least to the upper Indus or
that part Of the world
With these and many other clues
FIR. Mills set out on the search for
Eden and all the trails, he says, seemed
to converge in the cloud-washed depths
OF the HimalayaS about the Manasaro-
war lakes in the upper CaShmire whence
comes the Indus.
In view of the vast pile of evidence
we have accumulated in favor of a
Towering paradise at high attitudes" he
says, 1.-The idea of an elevated garden
of pleasure, even at $4,000 feet, is as
desirable as it is patristi-
cally approved. Accustomed as we are
to associate yoluptuous gardens with
more or less tropical conditions in the
lowlandS, 1t almost takes the breath
away to see palms and pomegranates
climbing to almost unearthly heights,
to pick apples and apricots at $4,000
feet or higher, roses at $4,000 and
rhododendrons at $4,000 feet. Here was
the Gan Eden of the human race. the
roof garden of the world
But, he points out, the climate has
changed since the days of mans exile.
lone heSitateS to picture" he saws,
what the hot springs must have done
to Manasarowar in those early days,
when even now there are rich pastures
watered by crystal streams. It must
have been veritable fairyland of
gorgeous flowers and enchanted fruits.
And when we consider that practically
all the fathers speak of highland
lake at the top of the world, shut of
from the habitable world by high noun
tains which cannot be crossed, we are
reminded of those mysterious mountain
gardens and inaccessible shining lakes
of which the saints, poets and estates
are so eloquent"
Thence, says FIR. Mills, came fallen
man, downward to the four cor
ners of the earth-proved by converging
from all the sciences. So he
went on his pilgrimage to Cashmire, to
the foot of Mount Everest. And he