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 didn't go to college.
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 credenials but himself.
He was only tirty-three when
The tide of public opinion
turned against him.
His friends ran away.
He was turned over to his enemies
and went through a 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 parliments that ever sat,
all the kings that ever reigned,
put together, have not affected
the life of man on this earth
as much as that
ONE SOLITARY LIFE.

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