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