Page:The Urantia Book, 1st Edition.djvu/1376

 1310 registered on Salvington from the Melchizedek sphere, the headquarters of that order in Nebadon, which simply recorded this extraordinary and never-before-heard-of transaction: "At noon today there appeared on the receiving field of this world a strange Melchizedek Son, not of our number but wholly like our order. He was accompanied by a solitary omniaphim who bore credentials from Uversa and presented orders addressed to our chief, derived from the Ancients of Days and concurred in by Immanuel of Salvington, directing that this new Melchizedek Son be received into our order and assigned to the emergency service of the Melchizedeks of Nebadon. And it has been so ordered; it has been done."

And this is about all that appears on the records of Salvington regarding the first Michael bestowal. Nothing more appears until after one hundred years of Urantia time, when there was recorded the fact of Michael's return and unannounced resumption of the direction of universe affairs. But a strange record is to be found on the Melchizedek world, a recital of the service of this unique Melchizedek Son of the emergency corps of that age. This record is preserved in a simple temple which now occupies the foreground of the home of the Father Melchizedek, and it comprises the narration of the service of this transitory Melchizedek Son in connection with his assignment to twenty-four missions of universe emergency. And this record, which I have so recently reviewed, ends thus:

"And at noon on this day, without previous announcement and witnessed by only three of our brotherhood, this visiting Son of our order disappeared from our world as he came, accompanied only by a solitary omniaphim; and this record is now closed with the certification that this visitor lived as a Melchizedek, in the likeness of a Melchizedek he worked as a Melchizedek, and he faithfully performed all of his assignments as an emergency Son of our order. By universal consent he has become chief of Melchizedeks, having earned our love and adoration by his matchless wisdom, supreme love, and superb devotion to duty. He loved us, understood us, and served with us, and forever we are his loyal and devoted fellow Melchizedeks, for this stranger on our world has now eternally become a universe minister of Melchizedek nature."

And that is all I am permitted to tell you of the first bestowal of Michael. We, of course, fully understand that this strange Melchizedek who so mysteriously served with the Melchizedeks a billion years ago was none other than the incarnated Michael on the mission of his first bestowal. The records do not specifically state that this unique and efficient Melchizedek was Michael, but it is universally believed that he was. Probably the actual statement of that fact cannot be found outside of the records of Sonarington, and the records of that secret world are not open to us. Only on this sacred world of the divine Sons are the mysteries of incarnation and bestowal fully known. We all know of the facts of the Michael bestowals, but we do not understand how they are effected. We do not know how the ruler of a universe, the creator of the Melchizedeks, can so suddenly and mysteriously become one of their number and, as one of them, live among them and work as a Melchizedek Son for one hundred years. But it so happened.

For almost one hundred and fifty million years after the Melchizedek bestowal of Michael, all went well in the universe of Nebadon, when trouble began