The Pride Cycle remains unbroken

And we are not wiser than our ancestors.

The dog returns to its vomit

And the sow is washed

only to wallow again in the mire.

We can never again feign shock

When we read of the Nephites

That “this great iniquity had come in the space

of not many years.”

Yet we are as naive as Nephi

When we see “the guilty and the wicked go unpunished

“because of their money

“to be held in office

“at the head of government

“that they might the more easily

commit adultery

and steal

and kill

and do according to their own wills”

And then exclaim in the agony of our souls

“Oh, that I could have had my days in the days of my fathers!”

As though this were some strange new thing

And not the way it has been

From the beginning