As we grow older, we resent more and more the constant alteration of the surroundings of life. It saddens us that there should be such a continual moving on. But perhaps it is in the realm of doctrine and practice that changes hurt and perplex us most. Godly old customs die out. The face of truth seems to alter. Old notes in religion disappear and new ones take their place, and we are sorely tempted to ask if it be possible that the children can know God better or serve His Christ more truly than their fathers. Ah yes, from forty years and upwards, men are very apt to have a quarrel with change. They resent it, and would spike Time’s wheels if they could. Forgetting that the Spirit of God is in those very wheels. Change is God’s method and His blessing. The Bible does not envy the man who has no changes. It is afraid for him, afraid that for want of them, he may settle on his lees, and forget the fear of God. Of course, no one will defend every new fashion, or assert that everything recent is an improvement on what went before. But I, for one, do believe that generation after generation men are moving up, being shepherded up, the long slope of history nearer to God. I believe that God’s promise is that He will do better for us than at the beginnings, and I believe He is keeping His promise. I must believe that the history of this world which man rough hews, is--spite of all the wars--being shaped by God Himself, or else there is no God at all. And so I would say to those who distrust the continual changes of life, and would fain stop the wheels that turn on and on and never halt, "Fear not! Be of good courage! For aback of all change is God our Father, and it is His Spirit that is working in the wheels." Again, I would suggest to you that God is in the wheels that shape your own lot and mine. The wheels of Chance, they are sometimes called, the mere whirligig of destiny, as if the world were some blind irresponsible machine grinding on in the dark, and heeding not which or how many lives were broken in its teeth. And I grant you that there be times when that idea seems feasible. For life is full of mysterious happenings, and chance sometimes seems the most probable explanation. The tragedy of Job is always being played somewhere. There are men who up to a certain point in life have known nothing but good fortune, and after that, nothing but disappointment and disaster. Out of a blue sky the bolt may fall on any one; while from clouds lowering and heavy, it is waited for, expected and dreaded--and never comes! The merest knife-edge of circumstance sometimes affects results out of all proportion to its importance. "A grain of sand in a man’s flesh" as Pascal remarks, "has changed the course of Empires." Yes, I grant you, there be times when the blind chance theory does suggest itself.