Moroni and Ether have always intrigued me.  Imagine being the sole survivor of an entire civilization!  How interesting that these two prophets should both have been accorded the same privilege.  Talk about being alone!  Their situation puts a whole different spin on the word loneliness.  Moroni wandered around alone for some 36 years.

We have no idea what happened to Ether except that he got to witness the annihilation of millions of people until there was just one man left other than him.  That man’s name was Coriantumr.  Ether watched from a distance as Coriantumr smote off the head of Shiz, the next-to-last man.  Coriantumr fell to the ground exhausted, and laid there as if dead.  Ether turned his back on the man, wrote about what he’d seen, and walked out of history.  He’d warned Coriantumr that the Jaredites’ great civil war would end precisely as it did unless Coriantumr repented.  Coriantumr turned his back on Ether’s warning, so now he, too, was alone.

Ether and Moroni had the companionship of the Holy Ghost.  No one is ever alone when he has such a friend.  The Holy Ghost can open broad vistas, and even heaven itself, to those with whom he associates.  Ether and Moroni aren’t to be pitied.

Pity Coriantumr.  How deep was his sorrow!  How friendless.  How alone.  How dreadful was his future.  He stumbled upon another people—just as Ether had prophesied—but he couldn’t understand their language.  They couldn’t be his friends.  All they could do was bury him, which they did after he’d lived eight months among them.

Adonijah got to experience aloneness, too.  One minute he was reveling as the center of attention at a great feast, the culmination of which was to be his crowning as the king of Israel.  The next minute the people heard the sound of trumpets and a great noise in the city.  A young man dashed in and broke the news to the assembly that Solomon had just been crowned king by Zadok and priest and Nathan the prophet.  King David had authorized the crowning, and this was the cause of all the noise.

The Bible records, “And all the guests that were with Adonijah were afraid, and rose up, and went every man his way.”  (1 Kings 1:49).

Adonijah was like a puffed up balloon from which all the air is suddenly released.  Where minutes before he’d been surrounded by admirers—he being the chief admirer—he was almost instantaneously left standing completely alone.  He was friendless, trembling, and full of fear.  His pride melted away.  He knew he was worthy of death, and ran and caught hold of the horns of the altar.

That was instant loneliness and despair.

Nephi, the son of Helaman, was similarly surrounded by a great concourse of people, and also found himself suddenly standing alone.  Most of the people were unfriendly.  They were accusing him of complicity in the death of the great chief judge.  He pointedly condemned the people’s sins, called upon them to repent, and revealed the chief judge’s true murderer.

His words were verified on the spot.  The people were astounded.  Nephi was set at liberty.  Some said he was a prophet, some said he was a god, and some were just plain jealous and offended.  “There arose a division among the people, insomuch that they divided hither and thither and went their ways leaving Nephi alone, as he was standing in the midst of them.”  (Helaman 10:1).

Nephi was amazed at the hardness of the people, and was weighed down with sorrow as he pondered their pitiful position.  An observer might have felt to pity him standing there all alone and friendless; but he was not alone, and he wasn’t friendless.  The voice of the Lord came to him commending him for his unwearyingness.  He was then given the sealing power, a power with which very few men had ever been entrusted.  (Helaman 10:5-7).

Being alone isn’t a bad thing if your heart is right, and if God is your friend.  Periods of solitude are even a necessary thing for a person to schedule into his daily life in order to give the Holy Ghost opportunities to speak to him.  It’s during quiet times that the Holy Ghost speaks, and is able to be heard.

Being all alone for extended periods isn’t a normal or enviable human condition; but I’d a whole lot rather be a Moroni, Ether or Nephi than a Coriantumr or an Adonijah.