The scene over which Mormon laments must have been harrowing. Nephi was given to see the same thing and was overcome with grief, I was overcome because of my afflictions, for I considered that mine afflictions were great above all, because of the destruction of my people, for I had beheld their fall (1 Nephi 14:5).
Jeffrey R. Holland
"Following the tremendous battle at Cumorah, Mormon looked out over the catastrophic carnage—the destruction of a thousand years of dreams—and cried to ears that could no longer hear:
’O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!
Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss.
O ye fair sons and daughters, ye fathers and mothers, ye husbands and wives, ye fair ones, how is it that ye could have fallen!
But behold, ye are gone, and my sorrows cannot bring your return.’ (Mormon 6:17-20)
“In a soliloquy of death, Mormon reached across time and space to all, especially to that ‘remnant of the house of Israel’ (Mormon 7:1) who would one day read his majestic record. Those of another time and place must learn what those lying before him had forgotten—that all must ’believe in Jesus Christ, that he is the Son of God,’ (Mormon 7:5)” (Christ And The New Covenant, p. 321 – 322)
Gordon B. Hinckley
"Here is a voice that has spoken from the dust with a familiar spirit, and touched the hearts of men and women in many lands. Those who have read it prayerfully, be they rich or poor, learned or unlearned, have grown under its power.
"Let me tell you of a letter which we received a few years ago. A man wrote saying in substance: ’I am in a federal reformatory in Ohio. I recently came across a copy of the Book of Mormon in the prison library. I have read it and when I read Mormon’s lamentation over his fallen people--O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you! Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. (Mormon 6:17-18.) When I read this I felt that Mormon was talking to me. Can I get a copy of that book?’
"We sent him a copy. He walked in the office some months later, a changed man. I am happy to report that a boy who had stolen gasoline, and then stolen automobiles, and then done other things until finally he was placed in a federal reformatory, was touched by the spirit of this book, and the report today is that he is now a successful man, rehabilitated, earning a living honestly for himself and family in a west coast city.
“Such has been the power of this great book in the lives of those who have read it prayerfully.” (Conference Report, Oct. 1959, pp. 119-20)