such
feeble dams as prayers and hymns?

Who the original "sons of God" were is a moot point. God only knows, and
he has not told us. But Jewish and Christian divines have advanced many
theories. According to some the sons of Gods were the offspring of Seth,
who was born holy in succession to righteous Abel, while the daughters
of men were the offspring of wicked Cain. Among the oriental Christians
it is said that the children of Seth tried to regain Paradise by
living in great austerity on Mount Hermon, but they soon tired of
their laborious days and cheerless nights, and cast sheep's-eyes on the
daughters of Cain, who beauty was equal to their father's wickedness.
Marriages followed, and the Devil triumphed again.

According to the Cabbalists, two angels, Aza and Azael, complained to
God at the creation of man. God answered, "You, O angels, if you were
in the lower world, you too would sin." They descended on earth, and
directly they saw the ladies they forgot heaven. They married and
exchanged the hallelujahs of the celestial chorus for the tender tones
of loving women and the sweet prattle of little children. Having sinned,
or, to use the vile language of religion, "polluted themselves with
women," they became clothed with flesh. On trying to regain Paradise
they failed, and were cast back on the mountains, where they continued
to beget giants and devils.

"There were giants in the earth in those days" says Scripture. Of
course there were. Every barbarous people has similar legends of
primitive ages. The translators of our Revised Version are ashamed
of these mythical personages as being too suggestive of Jack and the
Beanstalk, so they have substituted Anakim for giants. In other words,
they have shirked the duty of translators, and left the nonsense veiled
under the original word.

The Mohammedans say that not only giants, but also Jins, were born of
the sons of God, who married the daughters of men. The Jins soon had the
world in their power. They ruled everywhere, and built colossal works,
including the pyramids.

Of the giants, the most remarkable was Og. He was taller than the last
Yankee story, for at the Deluge he stopped the windows of heaven with
his hands, or the water would have risen over his head. The Talmud says
that he saved himself by swimming close to the ark in company with the
rhinoceros. The water there happened to be cold, while all the rest was
boiling hot; and thus Og was saved while all