Alma had been a member of a rising generation of young people who “did not believe the tradition of their fathers” (Mosiah 26:1). He had been “a very wicked and an idolatrous man . . . a man of many words, and did speak much flattery to the people; therefore he led many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities” (Mosiah 27:8). Alma’s conversion after the visitation of an angel radically altered the direction of his life.
Alma wanted his sons to avoid the anguish of spirit he had suffered and to learn when they were young to keep God’s commandments (see Alma 37:35). He testified that the knowledge he had to share did not come through his own wisdom or even his own worthiness, but was revealed to him from God (see Alma 36:4–5).