One cannot help but wonder if you, reader, have such a confident hope with regard to your future life. Only those who are able to say "The +LORD+ is my shepherd" are able to say "I will dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever." A famous Scotch preacher tells us that a demented boy, who was in the habit of attending one of the classes in his Sunday school, was sick unto death. The minister was asked to go to see the boy. He went to the house, and in speaking with the lad and after reading the Scriptures he was about to leave, when this boy, with only half his reasoning power, demented and partly idiotic, asked the great preacher if he wouldn't kneel down and recite for him the Twenty-third Psalm. In obedience to the boy's request he knelt and repeated the Twenty-third Psalm, until he came to the last verse which, as you know, reads "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." But the preacher did not repeat this last verse, for he was saying to himself while on his knees, "this verse can hardly be true of this boy, surely goodness and mercy has not followed him all the days of his life, and further, what does he know about the determination of this verse--to dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever?" And so the great preacher was rising from his knees, having omitted the last verse, when the boy reached out his hand and, placing it on the shoulder of the minister, pressed him again to his knees and repeated the last verse of the Psalm--the verse the preacher had omitted, as it is written in the Scotch hymn book: Goodness and mercy all my life Shall surely follow me; And in God's house for evermore My dwelling place shall be. --_William Whittingham_ This was a lesson the preacher never forgot. Can you, my reader, you, with all your senses, your keenness of brain and intellect--can you say what this idiotic boy could say: "I will dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever"? I am reminded in this connection of one of Bunyan's characters in the "Pilgrim's Progress." He is referred to as "Mr. Feeble Mind." This character in speaking of his immortal hope--that hope which lies beyond the valley of the shadow and the grave--expresses it in this way: "But this I am resolved on: to run when I can, to go when I cannot run, and to creep when I cannot go. As to the main, I thank Him that loved me. I am fixed. My way is before me. My mind is beyond the river that hath no bridge, though I am, as you see, but of a feeble mind." Mark that wonderful expression, will you?-- "My mind is beyond the river that hath no bridge." Is yours? You--man, woman, with all your senses, of strong and sound mind, can you give expression to an exclamation of faith like that?