One Solitary Life
He is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was
thirty.
Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.
He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office.
He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a
big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born.
He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but Himself...
While 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 the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two
thieves.
While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He
had on earth - His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave
through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of
the human race and leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when
I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever 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 that one solitary life.
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