Many particulars were altered and amended, from day to day, as you went along.  Some things were abandoned as useless; some as hopeless; some as impossible; some as injurious; some things were neglected, and others forgotten.  An unknown hand now and then interposed, turning the tables entirely.  An unaccountable influence was found operating on certain individuals, changing their tone, and modifying their conduct.  An unknown individual has come alongside of you, and has become your friend.  He has mingled his emotions and his plans with yours.  You have modified your plans.  He has changed his.  Business and commerce have taken an unexpected turn.  You are the gainer or the loser, it matters not; your plans are changed by the event.  An intimate friend has left you and become your open enemy; an open enemy has been reconciled and has returned to the affection and confidence of your heart.  Your plans in life have to be changed to suit such events as these.  Several friends and relatives, that were near to you, have been removed into the spiritual world.  It may be that by such providences, your feelings, thoughts, and actions have been changed—­changed utterly and for ever.  Darkness of mind, gloominess of life, and anguish of spirit may have come upon you, by some such unexpected providence, and thus your plans may have been changed, or even utterly abandoned.

But beyond matters of this description, which are somewhat external, and as we say accidental, and certainly incidental, to a life in this world, and in all of which we are led in a way that we know not; there are unexpected changes of another kind, that we all have experienced.  I now refer to changes in the inner man, and in the inner life.

For there is a Divinity within us that shapes our ends, and while the things of the outward life remain much the same, we experience changes of the inner life, that are at times amazing and terrible.  They come like the swelling of the tide, and like the beating of the waves rolling on from a distant ocean; the deep emotions of the soul arise and swell and sweep away; the fire of thought is kindled; the imagination paints the canvas; the tongue stands ready to utter the influx of love and wisdom; and the hand to illustrate it.

As these internal states of the soul change, by conjunction with the Lord and communion with Heaven, on the one hand; or by opposition to God and alliance with Hell, on the other, we see all things of the outward world in a different light.

The changes of our internal man are, to appearance, much more directly of the Lord’s Divine Providence, than the events of the outward life.  Nevertheless, the two are so related by the constitution of the mind, that each individual determines, in rationality and freedom, which of the emotions and thoughts of the inner life, he will bring forth into ultimate acts; and it is here that the man may ally himself with the good and the true on one hand, or with the evil and the false on the other; and in this manner determine his destiny for heaven or hell.