n is thus not only the child but the heir of God, a 'nurseling
of immortality,' capable of entering into eternal life. On the moral
influence of this belief it is superfluous to dwell.

From the most backward races historically known to us, to those of our own
status, all have been more or less washed by the waters of this double
stream of religion. The Hebrews, as far as our information goes, were
chiefly influenced by the first belief, the faith in the Eternal, and had
comparatively slight interest in whatever posthumous fortunes might await
individual souls. Other civilised peoples, say the Greeks, extended the
second, or animistic theory, into forms of beautiful fantasy, the
material of art. Yet both in Greece and Rome, as we learn from the
'Republic' (Books i. iii.) of Plato, and from the whole scope of the poem
of Lucretius, and from the Painted Porch at Delphi, answering to the
frescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo, there existed, among the people, what
was unknown to the Hebrews, an extreme anxiety about the posthumous
fortunes and possible punishment of the individual soul. A kind of
pardoners and indulgence-sellers made a living out of that anxiety in
Greece. For the Greek pardoners, who testify to an interest in the
future happiness of the soul not found in Israel, Mr. Jevons may be cited:

'The _agyrtes_ professed by means of his rites to purify men from the sins
they had themselves committed ... and so to secure to those whom he
purified an exemption from the evil lot in the next world which awaited
those who were not initiated.' 'A magic mirror' (crystal-gazing) 'was
among his properties.'[11]

In Egypt a moral life did not suffice to secure immortal reward. There
was also required knowledge of the spells that baffle the demons who, in
Amenti, as in the Red Indian and Polynesian Hades, lie in wait for souls.
That knowledge was contained in copies of the Book of the Dead--the
_gagne-pain_ of priests and scribes.

Early Israel, having, as far as we know, a singular lack of interest in
the future of the soul, was born to give himself up to developing,
undisturbed, the theistic conception, the belief in a righteous Eternal.

Polytheism everywhere--in Greece especially--held of the animistic
conception, with its freakish, corruptible deities. Greek philosophy could
hardly restore that Eternal for whom the Prophets battled in Israel; whom
some of the lowest savages know and fear; whom the animistic theory or cult