Have you experienced, even as your fathers did, a great change of heart? When before, they sought for that which was pleasing unto God. Have you been born of God, in that your desires are to do good and to eschew all evil? Does the light of His holy countenance continually shine in your faces? These are questions that, we imagine, Alma asked his brethren.
Many of his listeners remembered the face of the Prophet Abinadi, how the light of God's countenance shone therein as he pleaded with Noah's iniquitous priests to leave their wicked ways and to worship the Lord with much gladness. We repeat what we said before concerning this incident.
The assembled throng dared not interfere with Abinadi, nor did they molest him, for they saw in his countenance, the Spirit of God, making it bright like "Rays of Living Light." His face shone with exceeding luster, the Sacred Record says, "Even as Moses" did while in the mount of Sinai while speaking with the Lord." (II Cor. 3:7; See COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF MORMON, Volume II, p. 139)
We will shortly read, further on in the Book of Mormon, that Nephi and Lehi, sons of Helaman, were imprisoned by the Lamanites in Lehi-Nephi, that they went on their mission to their dark-skinned brethren, and that Nephi and his brother were treated with all the venom and cruelty their rude captors could suggest. They were denied both food and drink for many days, and were outraged by every mode of pain and grief the powers of hell could invent. Again, we repeat:
The walls of the prison rocked beneath the surges of an earthquake. Those who had gathered there to revile the servants of God became afraid, as if a "solemn fear came upon them." They could not move, they could not flee, a sudden darkness enshrouded them about. In the tumult which followed, scenes they never before had witnessed, contrasts so striking, through the darkness that encircled the Lamanites, they saw Lehi and Nephi in the attitude of prayer, singing praises to God. Their faces "did shine exceedingly, even as the faces of angels." (Helaman 5; also See COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF MORMON, Volume II, p. 139, v. 5.)