It is said of Job, and his friends who visited him to condole with him in his sufferings, that they sat down together and said nothing, for seven days and seven nights.

Nearly twenty years ago, a man of gigantic frame, but haggard appearance, came to me, and after the usual compliments, which were indeed very dry ones, sat down by my side, and said nothing; and this for the very same reason which is assigned as the cause of the long silence of Job and his friends his grief and his sufferings were very great.

His disease, however, was very different in its nature from that of Job. It was more like insanity than small pox, or eruptive disease of any kind. But hear him tell his own story, which I solicited at his hands for the express purpose of publication:

“My business, until I was twenty years of age, was farming. Since that time, it has been mechanical, and for the most part sedentary. From my youth, I ate animal food of all kinds, prepared in the usual manner. Twice a day I partook, more or less freely, of such vegetables as are in general use. Fruits, as they came in their season, I ate whenever and wherever I could lay hands on them, more especially apples; these last at almost all hours of the day, and almost without number. I was also in the habit of eating a luncheon at nine or ten o’clock in the morning, and just before going to bed.

“My drinks, till 1830, were principally tea, coffee, cider, and beer; but sometimes I used rum, brandy, molasses and water, milk and water, etc. For twelve years previous to 1837, I used tobacco. From my youth, I have had a fondness for reading and study have spent many hours in reading after the whole village were asleep.

“My health I considered good, compared with that of my acquaintances, and I was able to labor hard, although I was subject to dizziness and vomiting with such intensity that I could not walk or stand without assistance; and for a number of days, the complaint seemed to bid defiance to all medical aid. Here began the day of retribution, and bitterly have I suffered for my intemperance, both in eating and drinking. At length, my dizziness in some measure wore away, so that I returned to my work; but my system had received a shock that was not to be got rid of at once. And although my dizziness and inclination to vomit were in some measure removed, yet I grew weaker by degrees, so that by spring I was unable to perform my daily labor.

“I continued to decline until summer, when I was attacked with a violent cough from what cause I did not know. Some said it was the hooping-cough, some said it was la grippe. Suffice it to say, I took all the medicines prescribed by our family physician, followed all his good advice, and took all to no purpose. I was also persuaded to try the prescription of a celebrated physician in a neighboring town; but, alas! his prescription was tried in vain.

“My cough and dizziness not having left me, I tried a respectable physician of Boston, who, with an honesty of heart that does credit to his profession, bid me buy a ninepence worth of liquorice, keep my mouth and throat moist by chewing a little of that, and let my cough have its course; ‘For,’ said he, ’though I should like to sell you medicine and give you medical advice, for the sake of the emolument, it will do you no good. Your disease will have its course, and you cannot help it.’ I now thought my days were few; but, as a last resort, I repaired to you.”

He here enters into particulars which are not needful to my present purpose; and the detail, by one so intimately concerned, and withal so complimentary to me as his physician, would be fulsome. It is sufficient, perhaps, to add the following paragraphs.

“Agreeably to your advice, I now began to reform, in good earnest. With a constitution broken down, and almost rotten with disease, it was no easy matter for me to cure myself; but to it I went, determined to overcome or die in the attempt.

“I now began to think of eating what God created for man to eat. And now it was that my health began to return; and by the time I had practised the rules and prescriptions you laid down for me, about three months, my cough ceased, my dizziness left me, and my health and strength partly returned.

“Since that time I have lived on bread made of wheat meal, rye and Indian bread, rice boiled or stewed, rice puddings, corn puddings, apples, potatoes, etc. I sleep soundly and sweetly, on a straw bed; rise at four in summer and five in winter, refreshed both in body and mind; do as much work as it is necessary for any man to do; am cheerful, happy, contented, and thankful to God for all his mercies; go to bed at nine and go to sleep without having the night mare or any thing else to disturb my rest. I ought to add that I eat no luncheon; and but about as much in a whole day, as I used to eat at one meal.”

As I have already intimated, it is about twenty years since I prescribed for this individual, at which time he had a wife and two or three children. The latter seemed to require not a little watching and dosing. Now, in 1858, he has a very large family, many of whom have either arrived at maturity or nearly so; and the whole family have, for many years, been strangers to dosing and drugging. Except the mother, they seem like a family of giants, so large are their frames, and so marked and strong are their muscles. They are pictures of health, so to speak; and if Mr. Barnum would exhibit them at his museum, or elsewhere, he might, for aught I know, retrieve his shattered fortunes.

I know another great family, in New England, whose history, so far as physical inheritance is concerned, is not unlike that of the family just described. “There were giants in the earth in those days,” hence appears to be applicable to the world since the flood, as well as to that which was before it.