Primitive

peoples do not appear to have had any conception of what we now call “ Immortality,” namely the eternal life of an individual spirit. Their gods even, like themselves, were born, lived and died, though later poets called them immortal. Byron, pondering on ruined nations, says:— “Even gods must yield: religions take their turn: "Twas Jove’s: ’tis Mahomet’s, and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds, Poor child of doubt and death, whose hope is built on reeds.” The belief in a soul, spirit, or self, surviving the body is involved in this doctrine of immortality. Mi Naden, in her “Song of Immortality,” expre es the more modern idea:— “ Though thou shalt die, these the immortal forces That meet to form thee, live for ever more. They hold the suns in their eternal courses And shape the long sand-gra es on the shore. Be calmly glad, thine own true kindred seeing In fire and storm, in flowers with dew empearled.