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Remarkable Persons.

WHAT IS SAID ABOUT GIANTS,

"There were giants in the earth in those days" (Gen. vi. 4),

WE have this month answered a query respecting giants, and we have since then thought it well to pursue the subject a little further, under the heading of "Remarkable Persons." That there have been individuals and families distinguished for their extraordinary stature, cannot be doubted; both sacred and profane history attest this as a truth. In our own translation, various Hebrew words are rendered "giants; " and though there may be diversity of opinion as to their precise meaning, there can be no controversy when the measurement of their extraordinary stature is stated. Thus, the stature of Goliath of Gath is said to have been six cubits and a span, or nearly eleven feet (1 Sam. xvii. 4). This same Philistine, it appears, had four sons, who are described as men of great stature, and one of which had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, and the spear of one of these men was like a weaver's beam (2 Sam. xxi. 16-22). In Deut. iii. 11 we read of Og, king of Bashan, whose bedstead was nine cubits long (about 15 feet) and four cubits in breadth—that is, nearly 7 feet. If this man's stature were at all in proportion to his bed, he must have been at least about thirteen feet high. And yet it would seem there were whole peoples in Canaan of enormous stature; for we read of the sons of Anak, whose stature was so lofty that the people of Israel, in describing them, said that they themselves seemed but as grasshoppers in their presence (Numb. xiii. 33). Though this representation may have been an exaggeration, yet a stature really wonderful is admitted by the sacred historian himself. And further we read of another race called Emims, who were as tall as the Anakims (Deut. ii. 10). We have scattered notices of others under the name of giants, and their mighty descendants; and thus the existence of men of formidable gigantic size is a truth fully established. And Josephus tells us that the bones of these men were to be seen in his own day ("Antiquities," book v., chap. 2).

Profane historians have given us accounts of many individuals of great stature. They tell us that Hercules, their great hero, was seven feet high. In our days we have seen men eight feet high. The giant who was shown in Rouen in 1735 measured eight feet some inches. Julius Capitolinus states that the Emperor Maximin was eight feet six inches. Shenkins and Platerus, physicians of the last century, aver that they saw several persons of that stature. We have now in London a young woman just come from Nova Scotia, who is eight feet one inch in height. But Goropius

WHAT IS SAID ABOUT GIANTS.

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says he saw a girl who was ten feet high. The body of Orestes, according to the Greeks, was eleven feet and a half; the giant Galbara, brought from Arabia to Rome under Julius Cæsar, was nearly ten feet; and the bones of Secondilla and Pusio, keepers of the gardens of Sallust, were but six inches shorter. Funnam, a Scotchman who lived in the time of Eugene II., King of Scotland, is said to have measured eleven feet and a half; and Jacob Lemaire, in his voyage to the Straits of Magellan, reports that on the 17th of December, 1615, they found at Port Desiré several graves covered with stones; and, having the curiosity to remove the stones, they discovered human skeletons ten and eleven feet in length.

We have several accounts far more strange than these. The Chevalier Scory, in his voyage to the Peak of Teneriffe, says that they found in one of the sepulchral caverns the head of a Gaucho which had eighty teeth, and that the body was not less than fifteen feet in length. The giant Ferragus, slain by Orlando, nephew of Charlemagne, is said to have been eighteen feet in height. Riolan, a celebrated anatomist, who wrote in 1614, says that, some years before, there was to be seen in the suburbs of St. Germain the tomb of the giant Isoret, who was twenty feet in height.

In Rouen, in 1509, whilst digging in the ditches near the Dominicans, it is recorded that there was found a stone tomb containing a skull which held a bushel of corn, and whose shin-bone reached up to the girdle of the tallest man there, being about four feet in length, and consequently the body must have been seventeen or eighteen feet in height. Upon the tomb was a plate of copper, on which was engraved: "In this tomb lies the noble and puissant lord the Chevalier Ricon de Vallemont and his bones."

Platerus, a famous physician, declares that he saw at Lucerne the true human bones of a subject which must have been at least nineteen feet high. Valence, in Dauphiné, boasts of possessing the bones of the giant Bucart, tyrant of the Viverais, who was slain with an arrow by the Count de Cabillon, his vassal. The Dominicans state that they had a part of the shin-bone with the articulation of the knee, and his figure painted in fresco, with an inscription showing that this giant was twenty-two feet and a half in height, and that his bones were found in 1705 near the banks of the Morderi, a little river at the foot of the mountain of Crussol, upon which, according to tradition, the giant had his residence. On the 11th of January, 1613, some masons digging near the ruins of a castle in Dauphiné, in a field which, by tradition, had long been called the giant's field, at the depth of eighteen feet, discovered a brick tomb thirty feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet high, on which was a grey stone, with the words "Theutobochus Rex cut thereon. When the tomb was opened they found a human skeleton entire, twenty-five and a half feet long, ten feet wide across the shoulders, and five feet deep from the breast-bone to the back; the shin-bone measured four feet. Near Mazarino, in

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Sicily, in 1516, it is recorded that there was found the skeleton of a giant thirty feet high; his head was the size of a hogshead, and each of his teeth weighed five ounces. Near Palermo, in the valley of Mazara in Sicily, a skeleton of a giant of thirty feet long was found in the year 1548, and another of thirty-three feet high in 1550. Many curious persons have preserved several of these bones. The Athenians say they found near their city two famous skeletons, one of thirty-four and the other of thirty-six feet in height. At Totu, in Bohemia, there was found in 758 a skeleton the head of which could scarcely be encompassed by the arms of two men together; whilst the legs, which they still keep in the castle of that city, were twenty-six feet long. The skull of the giant found in Macedonia in September, 1691, contained 2,010 pounds of corn.

We give these accounts from the "Encyclopædia Britannica." The celebrated Sir Hans Sloane, who treated this matter very learnedly, does not doubt the facts, but thinks the bones were those of elephants, whales, or other enormous animals. Elephants' bones may be shown as those of giants, but they can never impose upon anatomists. Whales, which by their immense bulk are more proper to be substituted for the largest giants, have neither arms nor legs; and the head of that animal has not the least resemblance to that of a man. With regard to some of these accounts, we think they are either exaggerations or mistakes. If, in any castle of Bohemia, the bones of a man's leg twenty-six feet in length are preserved, we should have indeed a decisive proof of the existence of a giant, in comparison of whom most others would be but pigmies. Nor could these bones be supposed to belong to an elephant, for an elephant itself would be but a dwarf in comparison of such an enormous monster. If it be true, therefore, that a great number of the gigantic bones have been seen by anatomists, and by them have been ascertained to be real human bones, the existence of such giants is proved, but not otherwise, and we cannot believe such statements.

AUGUSTUS TOPLADY.

IN the pleasant county of Devon, and in one of its sequestered passes, with a few cottages sprinkled over it, mused and sang Augustus Toplady. When a lad of sixteen, and on a visit to Ireland, he had strolled into a barn where an illiterate layman was preaching, but preaching reconciliation to God through the death of his Son. The homely sermon took effect, and from that moment the Gospel wielded all the powers of his brilliant and active mind.

Toplady became very learned, and at thirty-eight he died, more widely read in fathers and reformers than most dignitaries can boast when their heads are hoary. His chief works are contro

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THE MERCHANT CHANGED INTO THE PHILOSOPHER.

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versial, and, in some respects, bear the impress of his over-ardent spirit. In the pulpit's milder agency, nothing flowed but balm. In his tones there was a commanding solemnity, and in his words there was such simplicity that to hear was to understand.

Both at Broad Hembury, and afterwards in London, the happiest results attended his ministry. Many sinners were converted; and the doctrines which God blessed to the accomplishment of these results, may be learned from the hymns which Toplady has bequeathed to the Church-" Rock of Ages, cleft for me," "A debtor to mercy alone," ," "When languor and disease invade," and "Deathless principle arise"-hymns in which it would seem as if the finished work were embalmed, and the living hope exulting in every line.

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During his last illness, Augustus Toplady seemed to lie in the very vestibule of glory. To a friend's inquiry, he answered, with sparkling eye, Oh, my dear sir, I cannot tell the comforts I feel in my soul; they are past expression. The consolations of God are so abundant that he leaves me nothing to pray for. My prayers are all converted into praise. I enjoy a heaven already in my soul." Within an hour of dying, he called his friends, and asked if they could give him up; and when they said they could, tears of joy ran down his cheeks as he added, "Oh, what a blessing that you are made willing to give me over into the hands of my dear Redeemer, and part with me; for no mortal can live after the glories which God has manifested to my soul!" And thus died the writer of the beautiful hymn, "Rock of Ages, cleft for

me."

ZENO: THE MERCHANT CHANGED INTO THE

PHILOSOPHER.

ZENO, a philosopher of Cilium, a town of Cyprus, turning merchant for his better support, was always unfortunate by losses at sea, insomuch that he was reduced to one small vessel; and having advice that it was cast away, and nothing saved, he received the news with cheerfulness, saying, "O Fortune! thou hast acted wisely, in forcing me to throw off the rich attire of a merchant, to put on the mean and despised habit of a scholar, and return me back to the school of philosophy, where there is nothing to lose, and the most satisfactory and durable things to be gained."

After this, Zeno so improved in learning, that King Antigonus II. held him in great esteem for his knowledge and integrity, and when he died, extremely lamented the loss of him. He was father of the Stoics, and taught "that men having two ears, and but one mouth, should hear much, and speak but little." This is good for a heathen, but a Christian would go much further. He would recognize a divine hand in his losses and disappointments, and find there an argument for seeking with increased zeal and earnestness

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