midnight
The enemies of God were as though they had not been . -LSB- 60 -RSB- The Lord brought up the vine of Christianity from a far country , and cast out the heathen , and planted and watered it , till it twined round the sceptre of the Cæsars , wreathed the columns of the Capitol , and filled the whole land . The heathen fanes were deserted , the gods discrowned , and the pagan flamen no longer offered sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove , Rome , which had dragged so many conquered deities in triumph at its chariot wheels , at length yielded to a mightier than all the gods of Olympus . The old faiths faded from the firmament of human thought as the stars of midnight at the dawn of day . The banished deities forsook their ancient seats . They walked no longer in the vale of Tempe nor in the grove of Daphne . The naiads bathed not in Scamander 's stream nor Simois , nor the nereids in the waters of the bright Ægean Sea .