Vesta (mythology)

'Vesta' is the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. She was often represented by the fire of her temple in the Forum Romanum. Entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, the Vestal Virgins. Vesta was considered a guardian of the Roman people, her festival, the Vestalia (7–15 June), was regarded as one of the most important Roman holidays. Following the rise of Christianity, hers was one of the last non-Christian cults still active, until it was forcibly disbanded by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in AD 391. Vesta was among the Dii Consentes, twelve of the most honored gods in the Roman pantheon.

Quotes

 * O Christ of God! whose life and death Our own have reconciled, Most quietly, most tenderly  Take home thy star-named child!Thy grace is in her patient eyes,  Thy words are on her tongue; The very silence round her seems  As if the angels sung.Her smile is as a listening child’s  Who hears its mother’s call; The lilies of Thy perfect peace  About her pillow fall.She leans from out our clinging arms  To rest herself in Thine; Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can we  Our well-beloved resign.O, less for her than for ourselves  We bow our heads and pray; Her setting star, like Bethlehem’s,  To Thee shall point the way!
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, "Vesta" in Hazel-Blossoms (1875), p. 91