Believing, as the Latter-day Saints do, that the Nephites were a branch of the house of Israel, and also that the races whence the English have most largely sprung had much of the blood of Israel in their composition, the agreement of these two units on the grain so frequently mentioned in the Bible (as with the Nephites all grain seems to have been of equal price) is not without its value in either argument. The fact, also, that the Nephites made grain the standard of value shows how highly agriculture must have been esteemed among that people. FOOTNOTES: [13 and 18] A son of Alma the younger. [14] A Nephite officer under Alma. [15] A chief ruler in the city of Ammonihah. [16, 17 and 19] Three Nephite generals killed at Cumorah. [20] The payment per day, fixed by law, for a Nephite judge when actually engaged in his official duties was one senine, otherwise one measure of barley. CHAPTER LXII. PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THE NEPHITES--THEIR BEAUTY--TESTIMONY OF REMAINS FOUND--THE DARK SKINNED LAMANITES. Ever and anon throughout the Book of Mormon, we are reminded by the inspired historians of the beauty of the Nephite race, especially in the days when the glory of righteousness beamed in their eyes, and shone in their countenances; then they were fair, very fair--a white and a delightsome people. And well might it be so, for were they not descended from that kindred couple, Abraham and his half-sister, whose great beauty has been proverbial in every generation, since they graced the earth with their comeliness? So lovely was Sarah, the fairest of womankind of her generation, that when she was sixty-seven years of age, the royal Pharaoh, disregarding the charms of the darker daughters of Egypt, desired her for his wife; and his admiration was doubtless in good taste, for the Bible tells us that she was then very fair. And still more remarkable, when yet another twenty-two years had passed away, and she had seen nearly ninety summers and winters come and go on this earth, another monarch, Abimelech, sought to take her to himself. Nor was her husband's manly beauty less striking; obedience to God, the observance of the laws of life, and the cultivation of the generous virtues so ennobled his existence, that strength and manhood tarried with him in its force, long after that age when the sons of modern generations are feebly tottering to their graves. Of the commanding beauty of Abraham's descendants, we have many recorded instances, but none that exceed that of his great-grandson Joseph, whose surpassing manliness placed him in the greatest jeopardy, but whose uncompromising virtue and unaffected innocence brought him off conqueror over temptation, and raised him to the highest pinnacle of earthly splendor and heavenly favor. It was from this well-favored Joseph that the Nephites sprang.