the people, where the young people may meet with the parents. Introduce at them any good plan which will attract those who do not attend meetings. Urge the parents to take part with the young people in all their amusements. It would be well to hold cottage meetings occasionally, and at these meetings introduce some social entertaining features so that they may be made attractive. In all your work, and in every plan adopted, remember that you are seeking to attract those who are indifferent to religious meetings, and you must therefore throw out inducements to get them under Gospel influences.

The presidents of associations and ward missionaries should meet with the bishopric of the ward once each week, and make verbal reports, and fill out the weekly report blank, sending same promptly to the stake superintendent. The stake superintendents should then summarize the weekly reports, and forward the summary, on the first of each month, to the missionary committee of the General Board, addressed to Elder J. Golden Kimball, Templeton Building, Salt Lake City. These reports and summaries will be made on blanks furnished for the purpose by the General Board.

The stake superintendency and aids are to meet with all the ward missionaries once each month at some convenient place, and if the stake is so scattered that all cannot come each month to one place, they should hold district missionary meetings, so as to fully instruct the missionaries from time to time, and ascertain positively whether they are working faithfully and carrying out the instructions.

In conclusion, it is the instruction of the General Board of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations that a mighty effort be made to make this local missionary work a perfect success. Therefore, let us one and all take up this work with interest and devotion, determined that our great organization, approved as it is in all its lines by the authorities of the Church, shall, more than ever, be felt as a mighty power for good in the midst of Israel.

THE LATE M. I. A. CONVENTIONS.

Without exaggeration, the conventions of the Mutual Improvement Associations, which were held this fall, were the most successful that have ever been convened. The brethren who visited the various stakes of Zion give good reports of the condition of the associations, and the work generally in those stakes. For the first time since the inauguration of the M. I. A. Conventions, every stake in Zion, including those in

Mexico, Arizona and Canada, has been visited by a member of the General Board. The spirit of the meetings in every case has been uplifting, and will tend greatly to accelerate the work during the present season. A pleasing feature of every convention was the presence of the Presidents of stakes and their counselors, and the Bishops and High Councilors, and other authorities of the Church, who took a living interest in the labors of the young people, and whose presence gave prestige and encouragement to the leaders in the work. The representation at all the conventions was the largest ever witnessed, and was all that could be expected in zeal and intelligence. Frequently officers came for a hundred miles or more to attend the conventions, and the instructions and exercises were all given with spirit and vim. The holding of the Young Ladies' conventions at the same time and in the same settlement was a new feature this year, which added to the interest of the gatherings. It is safe to predict that much good will result, if the spirit which was made manifest in these conventions is carried to the various associations; and the year 1903-4 will outdo all previous years in the progress and usefulness of Mutual Improvement work. The Board can only urge the officers to continue the labors so well begun, and are united in asking the Lord that the zeal and energy and interest displayed in the conventions may continue through the season in every association throughout the Church.

SEND ORDERS TO THIS OFFICE.

The attention of Mutual Improvement officers and others is called to the fact that the General Board of Y. M. M. I. A. is publishing the ERA, Manual, and Roll Books, and all orders for these should be sent directly to the general office of Y. M. M. I. A., 214 Templeton Building, Salt Lake City. Orders are sometimes sent to other offices, and delay is thereby caused, which may be avoided by ordering directly from the general office.

OUR STUDY AIM FOR TWO SEASONS:

To prove the origin of the Book of Mormon to be what the Latter-day Saints say it is; and the book itself to be what we proclaim it to be a rev elation from God.

EVENTS OF THE MONTH.

Local.-September, 1903.

NEW LIGHT IN UTAH.-About two years ago while Stephen T. Lockwood, of Buffalo, was in the West, he met two miners of Utah, who had found peculiar ore deposits in the La Sal district, in Grand County. An assayer reported not a trace of precious metals in the ore, but much uranium, and Mr. Lockwood knowing the commercial value of this ore urged the importance of the discovery. The result was that claims were staked upon the whole deposit. It was afterwards learned that the Utah uranium would yield the rare metal radium, about which so much is now said. A company has been formed in Buffalo to extract radium from this new Utah mineral, and Mr. Lockwood thinks that in the not distant future radium will be made as a commercial article for lightproducing purposes. When properly concentrated and tubed, radium is converted into a perpetual light, requiring no cost for operation, maintenance, renewal or repair. The Utah product is said to be much easier to work than the flinty pitchblende from which Professor and Madame Curie made their remarkable discovery of radium.

CALLED HENCE.-Josiah Philips died in Springville, Sep. 3, 1903. He crossed the plains with the hand-cart company of 1856.-John Crawford, pioneer, born in Scotland, Sep. 23, 1829, died in Manti, Sep. 5. He made the adobes for the old Salt Lake Tabernacle.-Mrs. Annie Hanson, age seventy-eight, a resident of West Jordan, who crossed the plains by oxteam in 1866, from her native country, Norway, died on the 5th.-Peter Thygersen, born in Denmark, and who took part in the Danish-German war of 1849, died in Levan, on the 6th, age seventy-five years.-Dr. Wm. T. Dalby, born Virginia, April 18, 1859, a distinguished citizen and physician of Salt Lake, died on the 7th.-Thomas F. Rouche, born in North Carolina, February 9, 1833, baptized Sep. 22, 1854, came to Utah in 1855, and a legislator, selectman and leading business man, died at his home in Kaysville, Davis Co., Sep. 12.-C. Sum Nichols, a well-known newspaper

man and veteran of the Civil war, born Quincy, Ill., March 11, 1843, died in Salt Lake on the 15th.-On the 16th Louisa Newell, born in Illinois, seventy-four years age, and a pioneer of 1852 died in Provo.-Ann Howarth Mayho, age eighty-eight, who received the gospel in Lancashire, England, and crossed the plains with the last hand-cart company, died in Heber, Wasatch Co., on the 22nd.-Malisa Coray Kimball, born Canada, 1828,, joined the Church in 1838, and reached Utah in 1848 by way of California with the "Mormon” Battalion, died in Salt Lake Sep. 21. -Elizabeth Venion died in Rockport, Summit Co., on the 24th, age seventy-seven years. She was an early settler on the upper Weber.— James Johnston, for nineteen years first counselor to former Bishop Griggs of Sugar Ward, died Sep. 25. He was born in Orkney Islands, 1836, and came to Utah in 1853.-Christopher Ingebretsen, president of the Scandinavian meetings in Ogden, born in Norway fifty-nine years ago, died on the 27th.-On October 5, in Richfield, the remains of Andrew Johnston Moore, born Iowa, March 16, 1849, a prominent citizen and once a deputy sheriff, were consigned to the grave.--Elijah E. Ellison, age forty-six, a leading business man and second counselor to Bishop Layton, of West Layton, Davis Co., died on the 8th.-Bishop Lars P. Madsen of North Ephraim, born Ephraim, Utah, Dec. 14, 1858, a prominent citizen and Church worker, was killed by accident in Cottonwood canyon, Oct. 10. On the same day, in Ephraim, Bendicta C. Hanson, a pioneer of 1857, died. She was born in Sweden, March 8, 1839, and was for eight years president of the Relief Society.-In Salt Lake City, on Oct. 14, Ann Thomas, mother of Coalmine Inspector Gomer Thomas, died. She was born in Wales, July 3, 1824.-Joseph E. Beck, formerly in charge of the Indian farm, and for over fifty years a tiller of the soil near Spanish Fork, died on the 13th, aged ninety-three years, four months and fifteen days.

NEW RAILWAY DEPOTS FOR SALT LAKE.-The Oregon Short Line began a definite move on the 8th for a new depot by asking the City Council for a franchise which was later granted by the council (28th). Work will be begun soon. The buildings and grounds will cost about a million dollars. The company has acquired considerable land, and condemnation proceedings will be entered to acquire more, making a total cost for land about a half million dollars. The petition for a franchise asks that certain streets be closed, and that the right for laying tracks and grading be granted. A few blocks south of the new proposed Short Line depot, the Rio Grande Railway company contemplate erecting an improvement of a similar magnitude and to that end have asked for a franchise and certain privileges from the city, which were granted by

the council, Oct. 5. Both improvements will be some years ahead of the city's needs, but business has doubled on the railroads since 1897, and there is no reason why it should not so largely increase in the next decade as to meet any advancement which the new buildings might indicate in the growth of the city. In connection with the Rio Grande building, there will be a fifty thousand dollar railroad Y. M. C. A. house erected for the benefit of employees.

SCHOOLS AND TEXT BOOKS.-The public schools generally opened with very large enrollments on the 14th. In Salt Lake the enrollment was eleven thousand, five hundred and thirty-four, an increase over last year's opening day of two hundred and thirty-four children, the proportion in other places being similar. One of the features of the opening this year was the introduction of the free text book system provided for by the last Legislative assembly. The innovation was generally met with favorable comments, though some districts were unprepared. The books were distributed by the thausands under the regulations; in the Ogden schools alone, eight thousand text books were delivered the first day.

TYPHOID FEVER.-This disease is prevalent about the state, many deaths and cases having been reported. During September there were one hundred and twenty-eight cases in Salt Lake City alone. From the September report it appears that the death rate in Salt Lake was 10.40 per 1000 of the population, or 65; while the birth rate was 145 or 23.20 per 1000.

GATHERINGS GALORE.-During the month, Utah has had its quota of national gatherings, and visits from associations and individuals from the various states of the Union. Besides the stream of visitors to the Bureau of Information, where frequently each day records visits from nearly all the states and many foreign nations, twenty-five leading Washington newspaper correspondents visited Salt Lake, Provo and other points and attended the Irrigation Congress at Ogden. Then there was an importtant gathering, commencing on the 11th, of the International Association of Ticket Agents; and on the 14th, the biennial convention of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers opened in Salt Lake. There were two hundred and thirty-five electricians present, representing every branch of the profession, and every city of any considerable size. But the greatest was, of course, the Irrigation Congress (born in Salt Lake City in 1891), held in Ogden (15-18)-at which practically all the states west of the Mississippi were represented by nearly four hundred delegates. The sessions were held in the Ogden Tabernacle, Senator W.