Alma 28

After people settled in, the guards built posts, and the church was thriving—always the measure of civilization with these folks—Lamanites began prowling on the outskirts. A battle quickly erupted that mushroomed into the largest yet seen on the continent. The Nephites won, with tens of thousands of Lamanites slaughtered and rotting in the sun. But Nephites had their own cache of casualties.

The wail of widows, orphans, brothers, sisters, parents

and grandparents, sounded for hundreds of yards into the wilderness. That’s what rang out the old year, the fifteenth of the judges’ reign.

A quick review: so far we’ve narrated the extraordinary, cockeyed proselyting of Ammon, et al., in Nephiland, including weird mishaps and injustices, memorable sermons and baptismal tolls, and, of course the settlement of Jershon by converts who insisted it be renamed in their spiritual mentor’s honor. Bless their hearts.

We saw along the way wars galore. You can’t imagine the death toll—or rather you can from the heaps of mold-ridden compost their carcasses became. You’ve seen them. Or at least smelled them from far off. And the mental-emotional state of huge citizenries continues to fester from all the carnage. Gloom presides over the infidels. Hope over the religiously zealous.

The great division, in our view, however oversimple it may seem, is simply the line drawn by sin. It’s a line drawn by Satan, a line that, once drawn, trips and snares those who step across it. If you’re ensnared, you’re depressed. If you’re not, you still might be, divine light notwithstanding, though the reason is the thought of those who are ensnared, their fate, their oblivion. Christ is joy, yes. But also yearning for those deprived of it.