N. Eldon Tanner
"Here another lesson is obvious. Throughout ecclesiastical history we find that those who rejected the prophets and failed to repent of their wickedness were struck by calamities which caused them literally to weep and to mourn and to regret their failure to heed the warnings of the prophets. We know that Christ was crucified and some of his apostles persecuted and stoned simply for trying to establish the kingdom of God and bring people to repentance and a happier way of life.
"Today the world is rejecting the messages of the prophets of God. Is it not true that there is weeping and wailing over the face of the land because men are at war one with another? Do we not have among us many who lament the waywardness of their youth and the tragedies that befall them as they turn away from righteousness and suffer the consequences of tampering with alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, and other forbidden things? How many mourners do we have as a result of the lawlessness that is extant in our communities? We need to heed the lessons from the history of the past lest we be consumed as were some of those earlier civilizations." (Conference Report, May 1975 Ensign, p. 34)