There is no chapter ending at this point in the 1830 edition. After telling the story of Alma’s disappearance, Mormon moves to his next story, which will yet again be one of internal dissention and conflict.
The new story begins with a missionary journey that was required to “regulate” the church (verse 21). The second meaning of “regulate” from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary is: “To put in good order; as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances.” Helaman and his brothers attempt to put the Nephite people, particularly those in the church, in “good order.”
The response to the devastation of the war was to increase the efforts to spread the church through the land, and to appoint priests and teachers to help maintain that “good order.” Nevertheless, we are told that “they grew proud, being lifted up in their hearts.” That kind of pride was always one of thinking one person better than another, and most often expressed by costly apparel or other demonstrations of wealth.