Some firemen were rescuing occupants from a burning hotel by means of a ladder that extended many stories upward. The firemen, noticing the fear of those on the ladder, kept calling to them, "Keep looking up, not down." As those being rescued heeded this wise counsel, they lost their fear, their footsteps became steady, and they came down the ladder safely.
Shortly after this incident, the advice of the firemen proved to be of great help to a Christian Scientist who had witnessed the rescue. Faced with many intricate human problems, she seemed to be constantly looking down, gripped with fearful, discouraged, material thinking. She felt completely defeated and mesmerized by the belief that material existence, with its many tribulations of sin and sickness, was actual and real. Mrs. Eddy writes: "If students do not readily heal themselves, they should early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid them. If they are unwilling to do this for themselves, they need only to know that error cannot produce this unnatural reluctance." Science and Health, p. 420; In obedience to this wise admonition the student sought the help of a Christian Science practitioner and poured out her troubles.
The practitioner quietly instructed her to stop dwelling on the problems and to look up, to know the truth. Instantly the student's thought went back to the incident at the hotel and to the firemen's helpful advice, "Keep looking up, not down." She saw what she had been doing that was wrong. She had been warring with the problems as realities instead of rejoicing in the truth of her being as the spiritual reflection of God.
