The preaching of the word in the Zoramite streets (v. 1) was a practice followed by the Church in our day for over a hundred years. Street meetings were very common in the missions of the Church until the practice faded out around the 1950’s.
The poverty of the Zoramites brought with it a hidden blessing in contrast to the curse of pride that often goes with riches (see Jacob 2:16; Alma 4:6). The wearing of costly apparel is also a symptom of pride (Alma 1:6). The Lord has instructed the Church to “let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands” (D&C 42:40). The Zoramites, who were poor as to the things of the world, were poor in heart (Alma 32:3). As Jesus said: “Yea, blessed are the poor in Spirit who come unto me” (3 Nephi 12:3; Matthew 5:3). As Amulek later says: “the great question which is in your minds is whether the word be in the Son of God, or whether there shall be a Christ” (Alma 34:5). The Zoramite prayer on the Rameumptom stated: “thou hast made known unto us that there shall be no Christ” (Alma 31:16). Thus the problem, in the first step of the scientific method, was really whether there shall be a Christ? Alma’s joy in recognizing that the poor Zoramites “were in preparation to hear the word” (Alma 32:6) was an acknowledgment that God has “his hand in all things” (D&C 59:21).