Tara de Silva’s letter is realistic and commendable. It is to
be appreciated by the world at large that the birth signifies a deeper meaning not
only for Christians but to all mankind. In this latter I am moved to put before
all your readers a beautiful description of the Life Of Jesus. I quote the worlds
of a Bible Scholar in the person of William Barclay.
One Solitary Life
Here is a man who was born of Jewish parents in an obscure
village, the child of a peasant woman, He grew up in another village. He worked in
a carpenter’s shop until be was thirty, and then for three years he was an
itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book, he never held an office, he never owned
a home. He never had a family.
He never went to college. He never travelled two hundred miles
from the place where he was born. He never did one of those things that usually
accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He had nothing to do with this world, except the naked power of
his manhood. While still a young man the tide of popular opinion turned against
him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his
enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross, between two thieves. His executioners
gambled for the only piece of property he had, while he was dying - and that was
his coat.
When he was dead he was taken down and laid in a borrowed
grave, through the pity of a friend.
Twenty wide centuries, have come and gone, and today He is the
Centre-Piece of Progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies
that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the
parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have
not affected the life of a man upon earth as powerfully as has that solitary life.
A committed Christian
C. P. Bissell
Dehiwala