One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in yet another village, where he worked in a carpenter’s shop, till 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 travelled more than 300kms from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness. He had no credentials, but himself.
He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. 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.
Over twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. 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 one solitary life.
Anonymous – printed as a newspaper advertisement
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