Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was 30. Then for three years, He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself.

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 upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth — His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

[Twenty] long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

— This excerpt is from a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis in "The Real Jesus and Other Sermons," a collection published in 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia.

Carter Clews offers an instant Christmas classic in his tale of the Gimme posted at GetLibety.org, the Web site of Americans for Limited Government.

Here's how the story begins:

Once upon a time, not too long ago, in a land where each of us has often been, there lived a very strange, yet vaguely familiar-looking character. He was not too big, but not too small. Not too short, but not too tall. He had big, over-sized hands, a terribly undersized heart, and, I'm afraid, a very sour-puss face.

Yes, it was true. He was one of those terribly rude, often crude, rarely good creatures known as a Gimme.

This Gimme, as it turns out, lived in a big old mansion on the top of the town's highest hill. It was often said among the townspeople that the mansion at one time had been the grandest, happiest home in the village – cool in the summer and warm in the winter, with huge brick fireplaces that heated every room with the warm fragrance of burning, crackling logs.

Now, however, since Mr. Gimme had lived in the house, it was old and crickety, with such high grass and thick vines that it really resembled very strongly a deep, dark cave – with Mr. Gimme as its hermit.

And what a sad, grouchy old hermit Mr. Gimme was. He would yell, and he would holler, and he'd pinch every dollar 'til you’d almost hear the poor thing scream for help. It was said that when old Mr. Gimme went to the store to buy things, he'd never be polite, but would bark out angrily, "Gimme this and gimme that, or I'll hit you with my hat!"

Check out "What the Gimme Got for Christmas!" at GetLiberty.org