Of the government and religion of the people of Mulek in the western hemisphere we know even less than of the Jaredites or the Nephites. Mulek himself was of royal lineage, being the son of King Zedekiah of Jerusalem; but whether the prerogatives of prince and king were enjoyed and exercised by him in the new world we cannot learn, nor is there any glimpse afforded us in the Nephite records of the nature of government among their people. Still, government of some sort must have subsisted among them, for when found by the Nephites in the valley of the Sidon they lived in association--chiefly in the great city of Zarahemla--a thing inconceivable apart from government of some sort. The gregarious instincts of man impel him to live in society, but the experience of the race is warrant for the truth of the fact that government is necessary to the perpetuity of that society. Hence when society of any permanent character is found, there, it may be taken for granted, government of some sort also exists. Hence the people of Mulek, since it is evident that they lived in a permanent society, had a government, but the nature of it is unknown. The people of Mulek came from the old world without scriptures or records of any kind. That is no matter of surprise, however, since they were fugitives escaping from the wrath of the king of Babylon. Their anxiety looked not to the future, but to the present. To them was committed the protection of one of the princes of Judah. To reach a place of safety for him would be their one, absorbing thought. But the experience of this colony illustrates the value of the written word of God. By reason of having no records or books, and no opportunity, or inclination, perhaps, to teach letters, the language they spoke--the language prevalent in Judea in the sixth century B. C.--in course of time very much deteriorated. [37] But that was not the worst consequence of their being without the written word. By the time the descendants of Mulek's colony were discovered by the migrating hosts of Nephites under Mosiah I--four hundred years from the time they left Judea--they were so far sunk in unbelief as to deny "the being of their Creator." Their condition of unbelief sustains the views on the value of the written word expressed by King Benjamin--son of Mosiah I--when teaching his people the importance of the records brought by Lehi's colony from Jerusalem. He held that had it not been for these sacred writings, the Nephites themselves would have been in ignorance of the mysteries of God; that it would have been impossible for Lehi to have taught all the things of God, but for the help he received from the written word; that but for this, their fathers would have dwindled in unbelief. [38] It may be taken for granted also that with a people who had no religion--who "denied the being of their Creator"--their morality was of a very low order; for it is a truth, attested over and