Scientific Illustrations Acts 23:1-11 And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brothers, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.… Neither animals nor men look well in incongruous situations. On the ground the sloths are about the most awkward and pitiable creatures that can well be imagined, for their forelegs are much longer than the hind ones; all the toes are terminated by very long curved claws; and the general structure of the animals is such as entirely to preclude the possibility of their walking on all fours in the manner of an ordinary quadruped. In this, which is an unnatural situation, they certainly appear the most helpless of animals, and their only means of progression consists in hooking their claws to some inequality in the ground, and thus dragging their bodies painfully along. But in their natural home, amongst the branches of trees, all these seeming disadvantages vanish. It is obvious, therefore, that when the sloth is not in the trees he is in an incongruous situation. And what a lesson his absurd position there should be to us not to make ourselves ridiculous by appearing on scenes where we can only exhibit our incapacity, and evoke either the pity or laughter of mankind! A mart with an inapt, unjudicial mind, presiding on the bench of justice, and performing his functions under the inspiration of a bad heart and an uneven temper, is a spectacle whose incongruity equals that presented by the most clumsy sloth that ever ambled out of its element. Monstrously incongruous, too, is that other spectacle, of a man who has a jockey's tastes and a bulldog's nature, stalking down to the gilded chamber occupied by the highest wisdom in England, for the purpose of displaying himself as a hereditary legislator ruling a free people. Poor awkward sloth! dragging yourself in unhandy fashion over the ground along which you were never intended to travel, you may be a sad illustration of a creature in an incongruous position, but you are not the most laughable one. These men dispute with you the prize for being the most ridiculous. (Scientific Illustrations.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. |
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