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Rh soul, and in the most bitter pain and mental anguish he lay racked with the remembrance of all his past sins. The thought of standing before the bar of God to be judged for his iniquities overwhelmed him with horror; he would have rejoiced in annihilation; he desired to become extinct, both body and soul, without being brought before his abused Creator. Thus he continued for three days and three nights to suffer the pains of hell, which to his tortured conscience must have seemed an eternity.

When his companions found that he could neither speak nor move, they carried him to his father, and related to him all that had happened. Strange as it must have seemed to them, the elder Alma's heart was filled with joy and praise when he looked upon the body of his much-loved son, for he realized it was God's power that had wrought all this, and that his long-continued prayers had been answered. In his joy he gathered the people to witness this mighty manifestation of the goodness and might of Jehovah. He assembled the priests, sought their co-operation, and unitedly, in God's own way, they prayed and fasted for the stricken youth. For two days they continued their supplications, at the end of which time Alma stood upon his feet and spoke. He comforted them by declaring, “I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit.”

In later years Alma, in relating to his son Helaman the details of his conversion, thus describes the causes that led him to bear this testimony. He says: “Behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart, O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who art in the gall of