That there was some system and regularity in Lamanite government must be apparent from the degree of efficiency with which that people conducted the protracted wars with the Nephites. The largeness of their armies, the length of the wars, and the extensive scale on which they were projected and prosecuted, would indicate the existence of some strong, central government capable of making its authority respected. That such a government existed among the Lamanites is disclosed through the facts that are brought to light by the mission of the young Nephite princes, the sons of Mosiah II, in the century preceding the birth of Messiah. It appears that at that time what I shall venture to call the Lamanite empire was divided into a number of petty kingdoms whose kings, as is always the case among semi-civilized peoples, were possessed of great and arbitrary power; but these in turn seem to have been subject to a central ruler whose dominion extended over all, and whose power in his large sphere was as absolute as that of the petty kings in the smaller states. The religion of the Lamanites is more difficult to determine than their government. It is chiefly the absence of religion and of its influence that must be spoken of. Taught to believe that the traditions of their fathers respecting God, the promised Messiah, and the belief in a future life were untrue; persuaded to believe that their fathers had been induced to leave fatherland, and their rich possessions therein because of the dreams of the visionary Lehi; firm in their conviction that the elder sons of Lehi had been defrauded of their right to govern the colony by the younger son, Nephi; and that through the force of the religious influence he learned to wield by following the spiritual example (to them, perhaps, the trickery) of his father--it was in the spirit of hatred of religion that the Lamanites waged war upon the Nephites, to subvert religion and free men from its restraints. But the Lamanites were true to human instincts. [39] They freed themselves, as they supposed, from one superstition, only to plunge into others that were really contemptible--the superstition of idolatry; for they were an idolatrous people. [40] This remark, however, must be understood in a general sense, and as applying to the Lamanites proper, previous to the coming of Messiah--of the followers, and the descendants of the followers, of the elder brothers of the first Nephi, Laman and Lemuel. After the coming of Messiah, when in the third century A. D., the old distinctions of Nephite and Lamanite were revived, after the long period of peace and righteousness following the advent of Christ, said distinctions could have no reference to race or family, as they had when first employed; but were strictly party distinctions; used, when adopted again in the period named, to indicate the Church or religious party, and the anti-religious party, respectively. But even this