It is the mysteriousness of God, the inscrutability of his essence, the shade in which he is invested, that will excite those peculiar emotions which nothing but transcendent perfection and unspeakable grandeur can inspire.—_Robert Hall._[2] [_February 15._] We need not go far to seek the materials for an acceptable offering; they lie all around us in the work of our callings, in the little calls which divine Providence daily makes to us, in the little crosses which God requires us to take up, nay, in our very recreations. The great point is to have the mind set upon seeing and seeking in all things the service of Christ and the glory of God, and, lo! every trifling incident which that mind touches, every piece of work which it handles, every dispensation to which it submits becomes a sacrifice. “If in our daily walks our mind Be set to hallow all we find, New treasures still of countless price God will provide for sacrifice. We need not bid for cloistered cell Our neighbor and our work farewell, Nor strive to wind ourselves too high For sinful man beneath the sky; The trifling round, the common task Will furnish all we ought to ask, Room to deny ourselves—a road To bring us daily nearer God.” If we allow the beauties of nature to raise our heart to God, we turn that into a sacrifice. If cross incidents, which could not be avoided or averted, are taken sweetly and lovingly, out of homage to the living will of God, this, too, is a sacrifice. If work be done in the full view of God’s assignment of our several tasks and spheres of labor, and under the consciousness of his presence, however secular in its character, it immediately becomes fit for presentation on the altar. If refreshment and amusement are so moderated as to help the spirit instead of dissipating it, if they are to be seasoned with the wholesome salt of self-denial (for every sacrifice must be seasoned with salt) they, too, become a holy oblation. If we study even perverse characters, with a loving hope and belief that we shall find something of God and Christ in them, which may be made the nucleus of better things, and instead of shutting ourselves up in a narrow sphere of sympathies, seek out and try to develop the good points of a generally uncongenial spirit; if we treat men as Christ treated them, counting that somewhere in every one there is a better mind, and the trace of God’s finger in creation, we may thus possibly sanctify an hour which would else be one of irksome constraint, and after which we might have been oppressed with a heavy feeling that it had been a wasted one. If a small trifle, destined to purchase some personal luxury or comfort, be diverted to a charitable and religious end, this is the regular and standing sacrifice of alms, recognized by the Scripture and the Liturgy. And finally, if we regard our time as, next to Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the most precious gift of God; if we gather up