So although destructive changes and revolutions may overturn...

So although destructive changes and revolutions may overturn and obliterate many of the habits and customs that have ruled for centuries over a given society, so that not even a trace is left of them today, the attachment and respect that men of the past nurtured for virtues such as justice, generosity, and trustworthiness remains exactly the same today in every human society.

It can even be said that the flame of men's love for these concepts burns more brightly today and that their attachment to them is more profound than ever before. Purely social conventions must be learned by children when their intellect and powers of discernment begin to blossom; by contrast, instinctual and natural urges emerge from the inner being of the child without any need for a teacher or master.

Being inherent to man and firmly rooted in his nature, belief in eternal truths and the awareness of creation and resurrection have proven immune to all the changes that human societies have undergone in history; they are permanent and stable. Those who bury their heads in the sand of fantasy are merely trying to cover up one of the most profound perceptions of man with their baseless and often incomprehensible imaginings.

* * * * * Some form of belief in the hereafter existed among the Romans, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Babylonians the Chaldaeans, and the other peoples of the ancient world, although the belief was often superficial, tainted with superstition, and far removed from the logic of a true faith in God's unity. The same is true of the beliefs of certain primitive peoples.

For example, it was customary among some tribes on the Congo that when one of their kings died, twelve virgins would present themselves at his grave and then begin fighting and arguing for the privilege of being joined with the deceased, often with fatal results! The people of the Fiji Islands believed that the dead engage in all the same activities as the living fighting battles, procreating children, tilling the land, and so on.

A scholar writes: “One of the customs of the people of Fiji is that they bury their mothers and fathers when they reach the age of forty.