Let me live in my house by the side of the road Where the race of men go by-- The men who are good and the men who are bad, As good and as bad as I, I would not sit in the scorner's seat, Or hurl the cynic's ban-- Let me live in the house by the side of the road And be a friend to man. I see from my house by the side of the road, By the side of the highway of life, The men who press with the ardor of hope, The men who are faint with the strife; But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears-- Both parts of an infinite plan-- Let me live in a house by the side of the road And be a friend to man. --_Sam Walter Foss_ CHAPTER SIX [Illustration] ="Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever."= The writer was once called to speak with a Scotch Presbyterian elder who was rapidly passing from this life. I had read to him this last verse of the Psalm, when, turning in his bed, he said to me in words that were almost his last, "Take my Bible and read that verse to me from 'The Psalms in Metre' in the back of my Bible." I took his Scotch Bible from a table close by and read: Goodness and mercy all my life Shall surely follow me, And in God's house for evermore My dwelling place shall be. --_William Whittingham_ Some one has well said that "goodness and mercy" are God's two collie dogs to preserve the Christian from all danger. Others have likened "goodness and mercy" to the Christian's footmen to wait upon him daily. "The house of the +LORD+" is doubtless here contrasted with the tent of the shepherd, just as the words "dwell for ever" are contrasted with the fact that the fugitive was allowed to stay in the shepherd's tent only a limited time. This verse expresses the confidence of the Christian with regard to the future. It is the Christian's confidence that in the Father's house a mansion is prepared for him, and that when the earthly house of this tabernacle is taken down and dissolved by death he has a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. This is surely a grand provision for old age, a life insurance worthy of the name, a home for the winter of life, and a blessed assurance with regard to one's eternity. How poor indeed is that soul that cannot say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," for the grave is not the terminus but the passageway that leads to endless light and life, into the glory and beauty of the house of the Lord in which the believer shall "dwell for ever." Beyond the night of death lies the perfect day; beyond the valley of the shadow lie the plains of peace.