over all God blessed for ever. Amen." With all these advantages, how many have perished!

The Bible history gives one reason for the apostacy of the children of the church. The people, or sons of God, married with the children of the world, or unbelievers. "The sons

of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." This led them to worldliness, to idolatry, and to destruction. Such marriages have always been forbidden by the Lord. We have already noticed that, to avoid this, Abraham and Isaac sought wives for their children from among their relatives; and also that the Lord gave a reason to the Jews, when forbidding them to let their children contract marriages with the heathen :- -"For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly." By these marriages, and the fruits of them, the Lord was provoked, and "said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man;" remembering, however, "he is flesh," in his mercy he added, "yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years: "4 thus foretelling the destruction of the world and giving space, all that time, for repentance, till the ark was built. The flood, however, came without one of them repenting, believing, or being saved.

Some of the children of these mixed marriages became mighty men, men of renown; and, as is generally the case with those who sin against light and knowledge, they became giants or monsters in iniquity and crime.

"There were giants in the earth in those days." We read also of families and even nations of giants among the descendants of Noah after the flood-men of great stature and strength. The spies, sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan, said, "We saw giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants; and we were in our own sight as grass

1 Rom. ix. 4.

2 Gen. vi. 2.

3 Deut. vii. 3, 4.

* Gen. vi. 3.

hoppers, and so we were in their sight." The LORD gave to the Ammonites for a possession a land previously “occupied by giants; a people great, and many, and tall, called Zamzummims: "2 and He gave to the Moabites the land of the Emims, also "accounted giants." The iron bedstead of Og, the king of Bashan, one of the remnants of giants, is described as being nine cubits, or about fifteen feet, long, and four cubits, or about six feet, wide.3 Goliath, slain by David, was about ten feet high. Since his time men have occasionally attained to about the same height. Climate and food will change the size of men and animals. agonians now would be giants to the Laplanders. As the term giants is applied only to a few, it is probable that men before the flood did not differ much from those after it, either in size or wickedness.

Some of the Pat

The fossil remains of gigantic animals, some of which are probably antediluvian, are frequently discovered buried in the earth, and they may be seen in the various museums. Some of these apparently belong to species the whole race of which is extinct. They may have been destroyed by the flood, or by violent convulsions of the earth causing a change of climate. Some of them may have been exterminated by the smaller animals, or by man. As the earth becomes more populous, and is subdued by man, it is likely other large animals, which man may not want to use, will disappear from it.

NOTE.-Prepared restorations of many of these animals, as they are supposed to have appeared, are exhibited at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. From copies of these, the annexed plate has been prepared. Some of the largest of them are—

The Iguanodon. A gigantic Lizard, estimated length, thirty to sixty feet.

The Megalosaurus. Another Lizard, supposed to have been carniverous, and probably twenty-five to thirty feet long.

'Numb. xiii, 33.

2 Deut. ii. 20.

3 Deut. iii. 11.

The Hylaosaurus. A combination of the Crocodile and Lizard, covered with scales, and having a row of long spines along the back. Length twenty to thirty feet.

The Ichthyosaurus. According to Mantell, "had the beak of a porpoise, the teeth of a crocodile, the head and sternum of a lizard, and the paddle of a whale."

The Plesiosaurus. Having the head of a lizard, the teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous length, like the body of a serpent, a body and tail of the proportions of an ordinary quadruped, and the paddles of a turtle or whale. Length twelve or fifteen feet.

The Glyptodon. A gigantic Armadillo, about fourteen feet long.

The Megatherium. A gigantic Sloth, much larger than the elephant; its body about twelve feet long and eight feet high; its feet were more than three feet long, and terminated by immense claws.

The Dinotherium. A gigantic Tapir, much larger than the Mammoth; supposed length eighteen feet.

The Mastodon or Mammoth. In the year 1800, the remains of one, with the flesh on, was discovered in the ice in Northern Russia. It was covered with reddish wool and with hair eight inches long. The skeleton, now in St. Petersburg, is nine and a half feet high, and the body sixteen feet in length. It must have been twice the size of the existing elephant. For some years the flesh of this animal was cut off for dog-meat by the people around, and bears, wolves and foxes fed upon it until the skeleton was cleared of its flesh.