midnight
What she embodies to us is the abstraction which you call the loving-kindness of the Father , revealed in his manifold gifts , wherever we turn our eyes . The image of Isis reminds us of the lavish bounties of the Creator , just as you are reminded by the cross , the fish , and the lamb , of your Redeemer . Isis is the earth from whose maternal bosom the creative God brings forth food and comfort for man and beast ; she is the tender yearning which He implants in the hearts of the lover and the beloved one ; she is the bond of affection which unites husband and wife , brother and sister , which is rapture to the mother with a child at her breast and makes her ready and able for any sacrifice for the darling she has brought into the world . She shines , a star in the midnight sky , giving comfort to the sorrowing heart ; she , who has languished in grief , pours balm into the wounded souls of the desolate and bereaved , and gives health and refreshment to the suffering . When nature pines in winter cold or in summer drought and lacks power to revive , when the sun is darkened , when lies and evil instincts alienate the soul from its pure first cause , then Isis uplifts her complaint , calling on her husband , Osiris , to return , to take her once more in his arms and fill her with new powers , to show the benevolence of God once more to the earth and to us men . You have learnt that lament ; and when you sing it at her festival , picture yourself as standing with the Mother of Sorrows -- the mother of your crucified divinity , by his open grave , and cry to your God that he may let him rise from the dead . '' Olympius spoke the last words with excited enthusiasm as though he were certain of the young girl 's consent ; but the effect was not what he counted on ; for Agne , who had listened to him , so far , with increasing agitation , setting herself against his arguments like a bird under the fascinating glare of the snake 's eye , at this last address seemed suddenly to shake off the spell of his seductive eloquence as the leaves drop from the crown of a tree shaken by the blast ; the ideas of her Saviour and of the hymn she was to sing were utterly irreconcilable in her mind ; she remembered the struggle she had fought out during the night , and the determination with which she had come to the house this morning .