"Arise, Sir Knight!"

History is littered with awe-inspiring individuals who by their courage and conviction have altered the course of human civilisation - for good or ill. Examples are too many to name but think for instance of Martin Luther, William Wilberforce, Herr Hitler, Christopher Colombus, Oliver Cromwell, Charles Darwin, William Tyndale, Albert Einstein, Henry VIII, William the Conqueror and so on. One could also argue that on this weekend (as we celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee) the abdication by Edward VIII was a courageous act that altered the course of British/world history. The power of one person (or a group of persons) to impact the course of history is something we find time and time again in the history books. All this said, we would be fools to ignore/fail to recognize, the one King, whose reign has had the most impact on the life of mankind on earth...

He was born in an obscure village, 
            the son of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another village, 
            where he worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty. 
Then for three years he became a wandering 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 travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. 
He did none of those 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 turned over to his enemies and went through a mockery of a trial. 
He was executed by the state. 
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.


Twenty 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 One Solitary Life.