The Lord, pouring out his last love, spoke,
And then he died.
Much could be said of it—
How his triumphant glance,
The happiest of all,
Was seen by his companions, even at the last.
Therefore he sent the Spirit unto them,
And the house trembled, solemnly;
And, with distant thunder,
The storm of God rolled over the cowering heads
Where, deep in thought,
The heroes of death were assembled. . . .
Now, when he, in parting,
Appeared once more before them,
Then the kingly day, the day of the sun, was put out,
And the gleaming sceptre, formed of his rays,
Was broken—and suffered like a god itself.
Yet it shall return and glow again
When the right time comes."
The fundamental pictures are the sacrificial death and the resurrection of Christ, like the self-sacrifice of the sun, which voluntarily breaks its sceptre, the fructifying rays, in the certain hope of resurrection. The following comments are to be noted in regard to "the sceptre of rays": Spielrein's patient says, "God pierces through the earth with his rays." The earth, in the patient's mind, has the meaning of woman. She also comprehends the sunbeam in mythologic fashion as something solid: "Jesus Christ has shown me his love, by striking against the window with a sunbeam." Among other insane patients I have come across the same idea of the solid substance of the sunbeam. Here there is also a hint of the
