Alma’s conclusion, “wickedness never was happiness,” was based upon his understanding of men’s weaknesses, and their mental and moral choices which were exhibited in the history of the preceding 4,000 years.
Alma had in his possession the Brass Plates of Laban. He had read them and re-read them. They contained the Hebrew Scriptures. He had read therein of the Fall of Man, and of the sorrow and misery Adam’s transgression brought upon all his sons and daughters. Alma also read how the descendants of Patriarch Jacob were made slaves by the Egyptians and were forced to do the bidding of relentless taskmasters.
Moreover, a history of the Jews down to the reign of King Zedekiah was engraved upon these plates. In reading it Alma became acquainted with the many follies and faults of the Jews. He learned how prone they were to heed the adversary. Time and time again, they had rejected God’s holy Word which was proclaimed to them by the holy prophets. Wickedness had dulled their sense of what was just and true. To the prophets the Jews gave little heed.
The Jews were God’s Chosen People, but in that lofty height they had fallen. They preferred “darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19) Wickedness weakened them and they became the prey of other powerful nations. Coalitions were formed against them and allied armies came upon them. We may assume, and rightly so, that because of their waywardness and backsliding, God did not quickly deliver them from the predatory assaults of their ambitious neighbors.
It appears that the Jews could not long dwell in peace. “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” (Isa. 48:22) However, the relatively short periods of peace which the Jews enjoyed, coupled with their rich heritage and the geographical location of their Sacred City, Jerusalem, brought them great material wealth. To the Jews the Lord gave much and much was expected, yet, they became proud and stiffnecked. They forgot God who had delivered their fathers from cruel bondage, and besides, they did not hesitate to change the requirements of the Torah (Law) to excuse the wicked designs of willful and evil-minded men.
As a nation they plowed and sowed iniquity and they reaped sorrow. “They drank deeply of the cup of bitterness and ate the bread of tears.” To the Jews, it seemed to be unending that they were the victims of foreign oppression and the servants of foes who showed no pity.
We, like Alma, must conclude that neglect of God’s laws and failure to abide them are unfailing signs that mark bitter servitude—the slavery of men’s souls. By the expression souls, we mean the body which we can see and the spirit that inhabits it. There is no happiness to be had in wickedness. These departures from the paths of holiness constitute man’s greatest weakness and his utmost folly. It was ever so. Alma knew it, and therefore he sought to impress it upon the mind of his son, Corianton.
The Prophet Jeremiah, who lived in Jerusalem at the same time as did the Prophet Lehi, the scholarly ancestor of both the Nephites and the Lamanites, exclaimed, “How long shall the land mourn … for the wickedness of them that dwell therein?” (Jer. 15:6) In another place the Lord said, “I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy.” (Ibid. 13:14)
When the Lord said, “I am weary with repenting,” He meant just this: Often He had stayed His hand in punishing His Chosen People because they promised to turn from their wicked ways and seek Him. Just as often their promises were vain. They continued in the wicked course they pursued. Now the Lord had proved their perfidy and now He refused longer to withhold His anger. His patience with them was exhausted.
Alma saw in all these things the sorrow which each imposed, but he still had further proof that wickedness never was happiness in the experiences of his own people. He had also in his possession the Record of Zeniff. Although he was, at that time, very young, he remembered the words of his intrepid father as he told of the wickedness of King Noah. Noah who was the son of Zeniff was king of the Nephites who lived in the Land of Lehi-Nephi. The record of Zeniff’s people told how wicked King Noah led his subjects into all manner of sin. Noah’s wanton practices became examples for his people to follow. Although at first the debaucheries of his court brought seeming pleasure to many of his followers, they ended in sorrow, in fierce bondage to the Lamanites in which murder, pillage, rapine, theft, and every cruelty which the ingenuity of their masters could suggest or evil power achieve was made part. The story of Zeniff’s people under King Noah is one of the blackest pages in Book of Mormon history. Its whole nature is a composite of crime and cruelty. It is a mystery. We cannot understand it. Alma’s argument is unanswerable. The experience of ages proves it true—wickedness never was happiness.
Many people have the idea that to get the most happiness out of life they must feed the hunger caused within them by “foolish and extravagant passions.” They feel that they should satisfy every fleshly desire. They plunge deeply into “the pseudo-joys and follies of the world.” They are quickly submerged in the unclean waters of iniquity. They mire knee-deep in the muck left by others who believed as they do. Yet a little while and their dreams of happiness are ended. Their laughter is turned into mourning, their joy into sorrow. They “sought for happiness in doing iniquity.” (Hel. 13:38) They shall never find it!
Listen to the words of Nephi, the son of Nephi, who was one of the Disciples of Christ:
And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.
4 Ne. 15-16)
We recall what David, the father of King Solomon, said, “Yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.” (Ps. 146:5)
2 Ne. 2:13)
Let us conclude as did Alma, “Wickedness never was happiness.”
Also, as did Paul, “The wages of sin is death.” (Rom. 6:23) And remember, too, that in that death, which is the death of the spiritual man, there is no happiness.
And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. (King Benjamin, Mosiah 2:41)
Although the comparison we make is very imperfect, we bring our comments upon this verse to an end by quoting poems written by two of England’s greatly loved men. The first was written by Lord Byron, a man of whom it has been said, “was blessed beyond measure in genius, but destitute more than many of grace.” Upon the very verge of the tomb he told in his own beautiful but unhappy words, the experiences of his life:
Though gay companions o’er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill,
Though pleasure fill the maddening soul,
The heart, the heart is lonely still.
Ay, but to die, and go, alas!
Where all have gone, and all must go,
To be the nothing that I was
Ere born to life and living woe.
Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o’er thy days from anguish free
And know, whatever thou hast been,
’Tis something better not to be.
Nay, for myself, so dark my fate
Through every turn of life hath been,
Man and this world so much I hate,
I care not when I quit the scene.
Contrast this “bitter sarcasm” with the following description of a poor, but happy, peasant woman, who loves God, lives rightly, and does justly; O what a gap between them! The one shows waywardness, the other, happiness.
Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store,
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light;
She, for her humble sphere by Nature fit,
Has little understanding, and no wit,
Receives no praise, but though her lot be such
(Toilsome and indigent), she renders much;
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true—
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew,
And in that Charter reads with sparkling eyes
Her title to a treasure in the skies.
O HAPPY peasant! O UNHAPPY bard!
His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward;
He praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come,
She never heard of half a mile from home:
He lost in errors his vain heart prefers,
She safe in the simplicity of hers.
—Unidentified