The Miracle of "One Solitary Life"
Here is a
man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew
up in an obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty,
and then for three years he was an itinerant teacher.
He never
wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a
family. He never went to college. He never traveled, except in his infancy,
more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one
of the things that usually accompanies greatness. He had no credentials but
himself.
While he
was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His
friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He
went through a mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two
thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on
earth, his seamless robe. When he was dead, he was taken down from the cross
and laid in a borrowed grave through the courtesy of a friend.
Nineteen
wide centuries have come and gone, and today he is the centerpiece of the human
race and the leader of all human progress. I am well within the mark when I say
that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever were built, all
the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put
together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as
has this one solitary personality. – Unknown
