ONE SOLITARY LIFE

: Anonymous


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. Be 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 him elf. 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 parliaments 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