Notes

EDITOR'S TABLE.

A SKETCH OF PRESIDENT DIAZ.

Readers of the Era will be delighted with the article in this number on the life of Porfirio Diaz, the respected and popular president of our neighboring republic— Mexico. The author is a well-known Utah man,whose experience as general manager of the Mexican Colonization and Agricultural Company, enables him to speak with authority on the subject treated. In a letter to the editors, he says, in fact, that the sketch "contains my honest estimate of the man." Considering the friendly relation existing between our country and Mexico, and the close affiliations of many of the Latter-day Saints with the citizens and government of our neighbor on the south, the article will be interesting reading to our young men and women who, with the older people, will join us in the hope that these peaceful and pleasant relations may become closer, and long continue. In this connection, we present our readers with a firstclass portrait of President Diaz, taken from a photograph recently printed in Mexico.

DR. TALMAGE'S LECTURE IN DENVER.

The first part of an exceedingly interesting lecture delivered before the Philosophical Society of Denver, by Dr. James E.

470 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

Talmage, of the University of Utah, on the 14th of March, 1901, is presented to the readers of the Era in this number. The membership of the said society is composed of men of learning, having all and no shades of religious belief. The gentlemen are very free in their criticisms and pointed in their questions, and have been known to greatly confuse lecturers who have appeared before them. Dr. Talmage, however, was able to maintain his position to the satisfaction and edification of his critical hearers, and the discussion demonstrated that the philosophy of the doctrines of "Mormonism" is true and incontrovertible. The lecture is a splendid study for young men, and for investigators of the true doctrines of salvation, and as such we commend it to the reader.

MISSIONARY WORK.

The annual report of missionary work for 1900, as published in the Millennial Star, shows 199 branches of The Church in Europe with a total membership of 10,714, of which there are 3,660 in England, 4,535 in Scandinavia, the remainder being divided among Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands and Turkey. There were 591 missionaries in the field, of which number thirteen are ladies all of whom labor in England, except one who is in the Netherlands. There were 1,606 baptisms, 488 being in England; 471 in Scandinavia; 301 in Germany; 158 in Switzerland; 159 in the Netherlands, and 29 in Turkey, an average of a little over 2J baptisms to each missionary. The German mission nearly doubled its baptisms for the previous year. The annual reports for 1900 of the Southwestern and Northern States missions are printed in the Reflex, and show that in those two missions there are 325 elders at work, and that there have been 562 baptisms. Over three hundred and twenty-five thousand families were visited, and thousands of meetings and fireside conversations were held. Add to these missions, the statistics of the Southern, Eastern and Northwestern States, Hawaii and other missions in the Pacific,