One of the greatest tributes that has ever been paid to motherhood

FAITH OF LAMANITE YOUTHS
I am thinking of the experience of the Nephites, when they were having their perilous troubles, and how just two thousand and sixty boys, striplings as Helaman called them, were brought face to face with men of experience and training in warfare, and they went forward without any question, and when they were gathered from the battlefield, everyone of them having been wounded, after a series of battles, two hundred of them having fainted from the loss of blood, not one had lost his life Alma 57:26-27 When the question was asked, “How could you do it? How could you have the faith?” those boys, like the ones that are going out now, no doubt, eighteen years and a little older, smilingly remarked, “We knew, our mothers knew” (see Alma 56:47-48 Alma 57:19-21
I think that is one of the greatest tributes that has ever been paid to motherhood—that in circumstances such as they were experiencing, when they were surrounded by enemies, they could train their children to have that faith in God that would carry them through and would bring them home without losing their lives.
I have been asking myself the question, “Have the mothers of Israel been preparing their sons?” Have they been teaching these boys that must represent us on the battlefield, that they too, can be preserved; that God will take care of them if they are in the line of their duty, and I want to say that if our mothers have, the fathers have much to be grateful for, because some fathers do not take much time to teach these children things like that in these days.
Author/Source: Righteousness and Gratitude Elder George Albert Smith Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles