A Race of Giants by John Norton Loughborough

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 18, 1865

A Race of Giants.

By John Norton Loughborough

When the bones of men and animals of a much larger size than those living on earth at the present time are discovered, many are ready to claim, that "these bones must have belonged to a race of men, and to classes of animals that existed before Adam was placed upon the earth." We believe the Bible gives us a record of the very commencement of the inhabiting of the earth. And instead of endorsing the idea of Moses' record of "the beginning" being incomplete, we claim that earth's first inhabitants, both man and beasts were much larger than at present, having now been affected by the curse for nearly six thousand years.

While at Princeville, Ill., visiting at the house of Bro. Bliss, a circumstance was related by him which I consider a striking proof of man's larger stature in former times. Several years ago, as Bro. Bliss was passing through the woods, I think he said in southern Ill., he came across a tree that had been blown over. There were eighteen very large-sized human skulls in the earth turned up by the roots of the tree. These skulls, with many other human bones found under the tree, were in a good state of preservation. The tree, as designated by its grains, was at least one hundred and fifty years old. The jawbones of these skulls were so large, that Bro. Bliss' father, who is a large man, could easily put the lower jaw over his chin. A leg bone was found there, which proved to be the bone between the knee and the ankle joints. This bone, when set up endwise on the floor beside a six foot man, would extend a hand's breadth above his knee. By comparing this bone with the same bone in the leg of a six foot man, it was decided that the bone must have belonged to a man at least eight feet high.

Bro. Henry Nicola of this place has just stated to me that in his boyhood days he lived in Virginia. A mound was opened on his father's farm, in which were found very large human bones. Among these bones was a skull, so large that it could easily be placed on the outside of the heads of the largest sized men. These bones were supposed to belong to men eight or nine feet in hight. The discovery of such large bones we regard simply as proof that men were once much larger than at present. The existence of these bones is not evidence that they belonged to men that existed before Adam.

By comparing man's present stature with that of those who possessed these bones, we may learn that the race has fallen off greatly in size. And in this we also behold the fulfillment of Isaiah's prediction of the languishing of the earth under the curse. "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest. As with the servant, so with his master. As with the maid, so with her mistress. As with the buyer, so with the seller. As with the lender, so with the borrower. As with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled; for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away. The world languisheth and fadeth away. The haughty people of the earth—margin, the hight of the people—do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the law, changed

the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth and they that dwell therein are desolate. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left." Isa. xxiv, 1-6.

This prophecy is a striking description of the effects of the curse upon the earth and its inhabitants. It seems also from this prophecy that the hight of the people's stature was to diminish. This part we understand is strikingly accomplished in the physical, mental, and moral languishing of the race.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

Pilot Grove, Iowa, July, 1865.