midnight
`` Did he ! The wretch , to set my own child against me ! '' cried Mrs Rainscourt , who had just been guilty of the very same offence which had raised her choler against her husband . The Queen of night , whose vast command Rules all the sea , and half the land ; And over moist and crazy brains , In high spring-tides at midnight reigns . Among the millions who , on the hallowed and appointed day , lay aside their worldly occupations to bow the knee to the Giver of all good , directing their orisons and their thoughts to one mercy-beaming power , like so many rays of light concentrated into one focus , I know no class of people in whose breasts the feeling of religion is more deeply implanted than the occupants of that glorious specimen of daring ingenuity -- a man-of-war . It is through his works that the Almighty is most sincerely reverenced , through them that his infinite power is with deepest humility acknowledged . The most forcible arguments , the most pathetic eloquence from the pulpit , will not affect so powerfully the mind of man , as the investigation of a blade of grass , or the mechanism of the almost imperceptible insect .