Rhetorical: This verse is a transition from the immediately finished theme of the fate of the enemies of God among them, or dissented away from them, and is a preparation for the next, and more important theme, the spiritual application of these principles. Although the current text of the Book of Mormon creates a break in the discourse with a chapter ending here and beginning again in chapter 3, the 1830 edition has no such break.
It is important to understand this as a whole discourse rather than broken into chapters, as the next chapter contains the real message of Benjamin’s discourse. To this point, he is in preparation. He has been moving his audience through their own immediate past in preparation for their immediate future.