This world and all in it must perish. You see death all around you. Many of the mighty cities of the past are now only ruins, and those that remain are so changed that the people who used to live in them would not know them now if they could come back to them. Men hope to achieve “immortality” by their accomplishments, but a few years will blot them out of human memory.
On one occasion the great Napoleon was in a gallery of the Louvre. He expressed admiration of a famous picture to a general of his staff who was standing nearby.
“Yes,” replied the general, “it is immortal.”
“Immortal!” exclaimed Napoleon. “How long will it last?”
“Three or four hundred years,” the officer replied.
Pointing to a statue in the gallery, Napoleon again demanded, “How long will that last?”
“Three or four thousand years,” the general thought.
The Emperor asked scornfully, “You call that immortal? Ah, nothing but our soul is immortal!”
You have an immortal soul. Where will your immortal soul spend its eternity?