The people heard the proclamation; then they began to gather in Zarahemla on the day appointed. They brought with them the firstlings of their flocks and their choicest young bullocks so that they might offer sacrifices and burnt offerings according to the Law of Moses, which they had been taught to observe. They came in such numbers that they were not to be counted. The king expected no such a multitude. Under the wise rule of King Benjamin, they had prospered greatly, both in numbers and in material.
We may surmise the great response to the call of Mosiah. The people loved King Benjamin who had been as a father to them. He had protected them when, from within and without, their enemies assailed them with false claims to proper conduct. He guided them aright. Now he was bowed down with the weight of many years and trembled under the responsibilities he carried, and would soon go to his God who had, in wisdom, appointed him to be their king. They welcomed the time when they could meet together and, as one, hear from his own lips, the words telling of God's wonderful ways. They hoped to be where they could hear his parting instructions. They gathered in Zarahemla with songs of joy and thanksgiving. All were imbued with the holy impulse, "I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my Salvation." "Thanks be to God," their historian wrote, "who had brought them out of Jerusalem, and who had delivered them out of the hands of their enemies, and had appointed just men to be their teachers, and also a just man to be their king."
They rejoiced that Benjamin was their king. By example and by precept he had taught them to keep the laws of God, that thereby they might take delight in serving the Lord, "and be filled with love towards God and all men." Their hearts overflowed with gratitude to the Great Giver of all these things. "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together," (Ps. 34:3) was the righteous desire of their hearts, and in the end, the purpose of the conference they held in Zarahemla.
May we suggest the advice given to Moses by his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, concerning the Children of Israel, which advice Moses accepted. Jethro said, "Thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers " (Ex. 18:21) Such a man was Benjamin!
Agreeable to the call that was made, the people, as we have noted, gathered in Zarahemla. So many came that the temple could not hold them. The plan had been to hold the general assemblies within its walls. So that more of those attending the sessions could hear his instructions, King Benjamin had a tower, or platform, erected, from which he spoke. This proved not to be enough, although the many visitors there pitched their tents around the temple lot, each tent with its opening facing the sacred building so that the people there could remain within their tents and hear what might be said. Even this arrangement was not sufficient to accommodate everyone. To instruct them King Benjamin had his words written down and distributed among those who were not within "sound of his voice, that they might also receive his words."
The sermons preached by King Benjamin at these meetings were some of the most divine and glorious recorded in the sacred annals of any people. They show, in his own life, the development of the loftiest conception of man's relationship to God, that is, "The Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man."
The realization of that great truth came to him through his service to others. He testified to them that God had kept and preserved him, to "serve you with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord hath granted unto me." The most menial of his subjects, he said, was like unto him in the sight of that God, before whom there is no inequality or rank. His sermons reveal to our senses, what Prof. Henri Bergson13 says, are conditions, "consistent with the satisfaction of our highest ideals." These conditions were, everywhere, to be met, and King Benjamin even went so far as to labor with his own hands in order to be an example, that his people should not be grieved with burdensome taxes and tasks that would end in their being slaves to the taskmaster, or victims of the tyrant's oppression.