On the Way to Rome

130:6.1While they were up in the moun­tains, Je­sus had a long talk with a young man who was fear­ful and down­cast. Fail­ing to de­rive com­fort and cour­age from as­so­ci­a­tion with his fel­lows, this youth had sought the soli­tude of the hills; he had grown up with a feel­ing of help­less­ness and in­fe­ri­or­ity. These nat­u­ral ten­den­cies had been aug­mented by nu­mer­ous dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances which the lad had en­coun­tered as he grew up, no­tably, the loss of his fa­ther when he was twelve years of age. As they met, Je­sus said: “Greet­ings, my friend! why so down­cast on such a beau­ti­ful day? If some­thing has hap­pened to dis­tress you, per­haps I can in some man­ner as­sist you. At any rate it af­fords me real plea­sure to prof­fer my ser­vices.”

130:6.2The young man was dis­in­clined to talk, and so Je­sus made a sec­ond ap­proach to his soul, say­ing: “I un­der­stand you come up in these hills to get away from folks; so, of course, you do not want to talk with me, but I would like to know whether you are fa­mil­iar with these hills; do you know the di­rec­tion of the trails? and, per­chance, could you in­form me as to the best route to Phenix?” Now this youth was very fa­mil­iar with these moun­tains, and he re­ally be­came much in­ter­ested in telling Je­sus the way to Phenix, so much so that he marked out all the trails on the ground and fully ex­plained ev­ery de­tail. But he was star­tled and made cu­ri­ous when Je­sus, af­ter say­ing good-bye and mak­ing as if he were tak­ing leave, sud­denly turned to him, say­ing: “I well know you wish to be left alone with your dis­con­so­la­tion; but it would be nei­ther kind nor fair for me to re­ceive such gen­er­ous help from you as to how best to find my way to Phenix and then un­think­ingly to go away from you with­out mak­ing the least ef­fort to an­swer your ap­peal­ing re­quest for help and guid­ance re­gard­ing the best route to the goal of des­tiny which you seek in your heart while you tarry here on the moun­tain­side. As you so well know the trails to Phenix, hav­ing tra­versed them many times, so do I well know the way to the city of your dis­ap­pointed hopes and thwarted am­bi­tions. And since you have asked me for help, I will not dis­ap­point you.” The youth was al­most over­come, but he man­aged to stam­mer out, “But—I did not ask you for any­thing—” And Je­sus, lay­ing a gen­tle hand on his shoul­der, said: “No, son, not with words but with long­ing looks did you ap­peal to my heart. My boy, to one who loves his fel­lows there is an elo­quent ap­peal for help in your coun­te­nance of dis­cour­age­ment and de­spair. Sit down with me while I tell you of the ser­vice trails and hap­pi­ness high­ways which lead from the sor­rows of self to the joys of lov­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in the broth­er­hood of men and in the ser­vice of the God of heaven.”

130:6.3By this time the young man very much de­sired to talk with Je­sus, and he knelt at his feet im­plor­ing Je­sus to help him, to show him the way of es­cape from his world of per­sonal sor­row and de­feat. Said Je­sus: “My friend, arise! Stand up like a man! You may be sur­rounded with small en­e­mies and be re­tarded by many ob­sta­cles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the uni­verse are on your side. The sun rises ev­ery morn­ing to salute you just as it does the most pow­er­ful and pros­per­ous man on earth. Look—you have a strong body and pow­er­ful mus­cles—your phys­i­cal equip­ment is bet­ter than the av­er­age. Of course, it is just about use­less while you sit out here on the moun­tain­side and grieve over your mis­for­tunes, real and fan­cied. But you could do great things with your body if you would has­ten off to where great things are wait­ing to be done. You are try­ing to run away from your un­happy self, but it can­not be done. You and your prob­lems of liv­ing are real; you can­not es­cape them as long as you live. But look again, your mind is clear and ca­pa­ble. Your strong body has an in­tel­li­gent mind to di­rect it. Set your mind at work to solve its prob­lems; teach your in­tel­lect to work for you; refuse longer to be dom­i­nated by fear like an un­think­ing an­i­mal. Your mind should be your coura­geous ally in the so­lu­tion of your life prob­lems rather than your be­ing, as you have been, its ab­ject fear-slave and the bond ser­vant of de­pres­sion and de­feat. But most valu­able of all, your po­ten­tial of real achieve­ment is the spirit which lives within you, and which will stim­u­late and in­spire your mind to con­trol it­self and ac­ti­vate the body if you will re­lease it from the fet­ters of fear and thus en­able your spir­i­tual na­ture to be­gin your de­liv­er­ance from the evils of in­ac­tion by the power-pres­ence of liv­ing faith. And then, forth­with, will this faith van­quish fear of men by the com­pelling pres­ence of that new and all-dom­i­nat­ing love of your fel­lows which will so soon fill your soul to over­flow­ing be­cause of the con­scious­ness which has been born in your heart that you are a child of God.

130:6.4“This day, my son, you are to be re­born, re-es­tab­lished as a man of faith, cour­age, and de­voted ser­vice to man, for God’s sake. And when you be­come so read­justed to life within your­self, you be­come like­wise read­justed to the uni­verse; you have been born again—born of the spirit—and hence­forth will your whole life be­come one of vic­to­ri­ous ac­com­plish­ment. Trou­ble will in­vig­o­rate you; dis­ap­point­ment will spur you on; dif­fi­cul­ties will chal­lenge you; and ob­sta­cles will stim­u­late you. Arise, young man! Say farewell to the life of cring­ing fear and flee­ing cow­ardice. Has­ten back to duty and live your life in the flesh as a son of God, a mor­tal ded­i­cated to the en­nobling ser­vice of man on earth and des­tined to the su­perb and eter­nal ser­vice of God in eter­nity.”

130:6.5And this youth, For­tune, sub­se­quently be­came the leader of the Chris­tians in Crete and the close as­so­ciate of Ti­tus in his labors for the up­lift of the Cre­tan be­liev­ers.

130:6.6The trav­el­ers were truly rested and re­freshed when they made ready about noon one day to sail for Carthage in north­ern Africa, stop­ping for two days at Cyrene. It was here that Je­sus and Ga­nid gave first aid to a lad named Ru­fus, who had been in­jured by the break­down of a loaded ox­cart. They car­ried him home to his mother, and his fa­ther, Si­mon, lit­tle dreamed that the man whose cross he sub­se­quently bore by or­ders of a Ro­man sol­dier was the stranger who once be­friended his son.