One solitary life
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant
woman. He grew up in still another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop
until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never
wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house.
He never went to a college or university. He never visited a big city. He never
traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things one usually associates with
greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He was only thirty-three when the
tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned
over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a
cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his
clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a
borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he is the
central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind's progress. All the
armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the congresses
that ever sat, all the monarchs that ever reigned -- put together -- have not
affected the life of man on this earth as much as that One Solitary
Life.
