Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, <br />the child of a peasant woman. <br />He grew up in another village. <br />He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. <br />Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. <br />He never owned a home. <br />He never wrote a book. <br />He never held an office. <br />He never had a family. <br />He never went to college. <br />He never put His foot inside a big city. <br />He never traveled two hundred miles <br />from the place He was born. <br />He never did one of the things <br />that usually accompany greatness. <br />He had no credentials but Himself... <br />While still a young man, <br />the tide of popular opinion turned against him. <br />His friends ran away. <br />One of them denied Him. <br />He was turned over to His enemies. <br />He went through the mockery of a trial. <br />He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. <br />While He was dying His executioners gambled <br />for the only piece of property He had on earth � His coat. When He was dead, He was laid <br />in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. <br />Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, <br />and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and <br />leader of the column of progress. <br />I am far within the mark when I say that <br />all the armies that ever marched, <br />all the navies that were ever built; <br />all the parliaments that ever sat <br />and all the kings that ever reigned, <br />put together, <br />have not affected the life of man upon this earth <br />as powerfully as has that one solitary life.