A Christian Scientist frequently made overnight business trips to a large city, arriving very early in the morning. He was accustomed to walk the short distance from the railway station to his hotel, although with considerable distaste, since his route took him through a slum area which at that hour was littered with the accumulated refuse of the preceding day and night.

On one occasion as he was walking along the street, feeling quite depressed because of its ugly appearance, he suddenly thought: "All this dirt can't touch me. It is burdening me only because I am looking at it, taking it into my consciousness, accepting it into my day. Look up! The sky is clear and bright with sunrise. The air is fresh and invigorating. It's going to be a lovely day. Rejoice and be glad!" Then there flashed into his thought Mary Baker Eddy's admonition in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 264): "Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?" Instantly he realized that the seeming ugliness was no part of man's real existence and could be excluded from his experience by resting his gaze in "the unsearchable realm of Mind."

This does not mean that the Christian Scientist ignores unpleasant conditions or surroundings. Rather does he refuse to admit the evidence of evil and discord as real, because he knows that the allness of Truth is expressed in harmony and virtue. He understands that because of God's impeccable perfection opposite evidences are unreal; and he specifically affirms their nothingness. He declines to weigh down his consciousness with mortal mind's fraudulence, which deserves no consideration.

The full significance of the simple incident just related began to expand in the student's thought during subsequent weeks and months. The necessity of turning resolutely away from the contemplation of evil became more and more apparent to him. For instance, he had often speculated in the light of the teachings of Christian Science, as he thought, upon the origin of the material universe and its accompanying material laws. Such speculation, however, always ended in hopeless confusion; and he began to see that it could never be otherwise, because any attempt to explain matter must necessarily assume its reality. In this connection, another statement of Mrs. Eddy's in the Christian Science textbook took on added significance (ibid., p. 268): "Belief in a material basis, from which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from matter to Mind as the cause of every effect."

Spirit and matter never mingle, never touch each other at any point, and there can be no common ground between them. Christian Science teaches us to accept the spiritual alone as the real. When we obediently look away from matter to Spirit, the dreamlike nature of materiality is disclosed. But in order to bring this about, we must turn away from the false picture. We cannot prove matter's unreality while continuing to contemplate and cherish it.

This line of reasoning is especially helpful in overcoming suggestions of ill-health and disease. A practitioner of Christian Science once remarked that he was very careful not to let a "sick" man into his office, because if he did, it was too hard to get him out. What he meant was that to heal in Christian Science we must start from the basis of the perfection of God and man and maintain that perfection in the face of error's evidence to the contrary. We do not start with a sick man and endeavor to make him well.

Every manifestation of sickness begins with the suggestion that God is not supreme and all-powerful in His entire creation. At this very point we have the priceless opportunity and the authority to deny and reject this lie and to choose whom we will serve. It is of great importance to take our stand with Truth at the very first appearance of inharmony. Mrs. Eddy admonishes us on page 261 of the textbook, "Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality." She continues, "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."

The act of looking up or away from error always hastens healing. Mark states in the account of Jesus' healing of the blind man of Beth-saida that when perfect sight was not made evident at once, Jesus "put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly" (Mark 8:25). When Peter and John were confronted with the lame man at the Beautiful gate of the temple, Peter directed him to "look on" them, "and he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them" (Acts 3:5). That is, he turned away from contemplating his trouble and looked up to the exponents of God's law of perfection. So he received his healing.

On several occasions the Gospels relate that Jesus "lifted up his eyes," notably at the raising of Lazarus. This may imply that he turned away from the material evidence of death and realized God's presence and power, evidenced in restoration and life.

In the field of human relations—in business, church, and social contacts—we have many profitable opportunities to turn away from the evidence of discord, tension, and confusion to the simple reality of one Mind, governing and guiding His idea, man. When we are confronted with what appear to be undesirable or unworthy actions by those around us, our unfailing remedy is to look away from this false picture, to look up to the real man of God's creating. Christian Science shows us that the man of God's creating has but one business; namely, to be a witness to indestructible Life and ever-present good. To be such a witness is possible for each of us here and now. True ambition is the desire to progress toward the attainment of this goal, rather than toward the accumulation of wealth or human power.

Spiritual progress is not made at the expense of our brother man, nor can human favor or influence hasten such progress or retard it. We can never be in competition with our brother for anything truly good, that is, for real substance, opportunity, or progress. Man possesses as reflection God's abundance. And we cannot wear out God's love, His strength, His wisdom, for they are infinite.

Let us look away from the temptation to accept as real a selfish, critical, aggressive, sick, or inharmonious mortal as being either our-self or another. And let us look up and cling to the glorious fact of God's allness and man's real being as His likeness.