Quotes from lesson on Helaman 10-13

In 1787 Edward Gibbon completed his noble work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Here is the way he accounted for the fall. 1. The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society. 2. Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public monies for free bread and circuses for the populace. 3. The mad craze for pleasure, sports becoming every year more and more exciting and brutal. 4. The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within the decadence of the people. 5. The decay of religion – faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life, and becoming impotent to warn and guide the people. (Ezra Taft Benson, God, Family, County, 363-364)


Hugh Nibley: “The Prophet Samuel the Lamanite sets forth the interesting rule that when ‘the Economy’ becomes the main and engrossing concern of a society--or in the routine Book of Mormon phrase, when ‘they begin to set their hearts upon their riches’--the economy will self-destruct. This is how he puts it: ‘Ye do always remember your riches; . . . your hearts are not drawn out unto the Lord, but they do swell with great pride, . . . envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions and murders, and all manner of iniquities’ (Helaman 13:22). Note well the sequence of folly: first we are well pleased with ourselves because of our wealth, then comes the game of status and prestige, leading to competitive maneuvers, hatred, and dirty tricks, and finally the ultimate
solution. Where wealth guarantees respectability, principles melt away as the criminal element rises to the top: ‘For this cause hath the Lord God caused that a curse should come upon the land, and also upon your riches’ (Helaman 13:23).” (The Prophetic Book of Mormon, p. 349)