GREAT MEN'S BODIES
Just try one or two of these, and see if they are easy, you who feel strong, and all right. There may be more to this "weak bodily presence" than you perhaps ever thought of. Let your nearest blacksmith, for instance, lash your back thirty-nine times with a horsewhip. Or try a night and a day in the deep.
And was his speech contemptible, when a mob had him in its clutches; and all the city was moved; and the people ran together; and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple; and were about to kill him; and he was borne of the soldiers, for the violence of the people? Yet who could stand right there on the stair; hold the rioters at bay; and, in that memorable "Men, brethren, and fathers" speech, force them to hear the truth, with such skill and power that they could stand it no longer; but shrieked out, "Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live!"
No—they had awakened the wrong man. Then, the next day, could, with a few bold words, split their great council into two factions; then face the Governor, who held his life in his power; and stretching forth his hand amid all "the great pomp; and among the chief captains and principal men of the city" so charm them with his speech, that the king himself could not resist him; but broke out right there before them all, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian!" Do you call that speech contemptible? Just name some other speech, made by any man of this century that will live like that! No—he might not have had as sonorous a voice; or as imposing mien; as some of those low Corinthians; but no other man in all that age has left a speech that can match this one for power.
And something is known of his body too. Malala, or John of Antioch, wrote of Paul that "He was short of stature, bald and grayish as to the hair of the head and of the chin; of a good nose and light blue eyes with the eyebrows knit together; of a fair and ruddy complexion, and graceful beard; of benevolent expression; of sound judgment, gentle, affable, of pleasing manner; and glowing with the fervor of the Holy Spirit."
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