In spite of the fact that the Nephites were victorious in the dread conflict with the Lamanites, they were themselves sorely tried. Upon their return to the homes they had established throughout the Land of Zarahemla the Nephite defenders of their sod found many of their crops ruined, their flocks and herds scattered, and what was worse yet, that numbers of their loves ones and their neighbors had been slain by the hands of the wicked Lamanites. Not only that, but the returning warriors, in many cases, did not bring home with them a father, or a son, a husband or a brother, who had gone forth together in a band to defend their sacred religion and their home land which, too, was sacred to them.
Day after day as the widows and orphans awaited the return of their husbands and fathers who did not come, and parents their sons and sisters their brothers, whose existence only a short time previously had presaged for the Nephites a grand and glorious future, the realization that their loved ones would not come back turned their joy into sorrow and their laughter into mourning "for their kindred who had been slain." "Now this was a time that there was a great mourning and lamentation heard throughout all the land, among all the people of Nephi." (v. 4)
Mormon, the abridger of Alma's record, reasserts in verse six the sorrow that was almost universal among the Nephites at this time. He says it was a day of "solemnity," and we may judge for ourselves the suffering caused by the loss of dear ones which loss left many women and children without adequate means of support. If it had not been for their reliance upon a merciful God in Whom they had been taught to trust they might have been overwhelmed. But in Him they lived, and by Him they were sustained. Almost as one they invoked His holy Name, and almost as one they received from Him succor according to the hour and power of their need. He did not forsake them, nor leave them in their grief. We shall see as we progress further in our study of this Branch of the House of Israel, that as long as Nephi's descendants kept the commandments of the Lord a Providential care enfolded them about, and by their enemies they were never overcome.