One Solitary Life

Here 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’s shop until he was 30, and 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 travelled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did any one of the things that usually accompanied 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.

Twenty long centuries have come and gone and today he is the centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress. He never wrote a book. Yet more books have been written about him than anyone on earth. He never wrote a song. Yet he has furnished the theme for more songs than all the songwriters combined. This Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms has conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon put together. Without science and learning, he spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since and produced effects that lie beyond the reach of any orator or poet. 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 a man upon this earth as powerfully as this one man.

By Unknown Author