A CHAT WITH MISS VON FINKELSTEIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9187, 17 October 1888, Page 5

A CHAT WITH MISS VON FINKELSTEIN.

A member of our staff had an interview with Miss von Finkelstein yesterday afternoon. The lady is staying at the Albert Hotel, and was just taking leave of the Rev. Mr. Nelson and his wife as our representative was ushered into her sittingroom. Miss von Finkelstein is a tall and commanding personage, of pleasing manners, and possessing an open and vivacious countenance. Her conversational powers are exceptionally good. She speaks English with remarkable fluency and force, and with only the slightest tinge of a foreign accent. " It is," she said, " almost like my native tongue, and I prefer to speak it to any other. Although I speak and write French, German, Russian, Arabic, and Hebrew, my European education was chiefly conducted in English, and I like it the best and use it the most. I had, however, the advantage of what may be called an Oriental education as well, and when I was last in Jerusalem, a year or two ago, delivered an address in Arabic to the natives, descriptive of my lecturing work in England and America. Ib was a most mixed gathering, almost all nationalities being represented in it." " How came you, Miss Von Finkelstein, to start on your career as a lecturer?" " Well, it happened in this way. My father died in Jerusalem in 18b'5, and two years afterward I went to reside in America. My brother had been American vice-consul in Jerusalem, and I had met there many American clergymen and others. I was particularly struck wth their imfamiliarity with many of the social conditions of life in the East, to which frequent allusion is made in the Bible, and this impressed mo the more when I went to America, for I had supposed that all Europeans were thoroughly conversant and fully understood tho Biblical references to Eastern customs. I was shocked to find so much ignorance prevailing. This was very noticeable among the professional sceptics, some of whose lectures I attended in New York. I found they spoke as they did because they did not understand Eastern ways. Some of the clorgy with whom I conversed on the subject asked me to address their Sunday-school scholars, which I did, and in that way I may be said to have besfun my career as a lecturer. These addresses, I found, did much good, and I decided that in that direction lay my life's work. My sole object was to show that sceptics and infidels who regarded the Bible as a mythological tale were wrong, because they were ignorant of Oriental life. It is a difficult matter for foreigners to become acquainted with it. The natives are reticent and prejudiced, and conceal a great deal from strangers, for they are superstitious, and believe that the Europeans will come and take their country from them. I had lived among them, spoke their language, entered their houses, and been almost as one of them. I was, therefore, thoroughly acquainted with their manners, and customs, and modes of life. 1 was, therefore, well qualified for my work. 1 began lecturing in ISBI, and for four years travelled all over the United States, and established many branches of the Chautauqua Society. That is a wonderful movement. It was begun by Bishop Vincent. Its object is to afford opportunities for self - improvement. In America a great many parents who have little education, but, who have become well-to-do, have sent their sons to the Universities, and the result is that the latter look down upon their illiterate fathers and mothers. Bishop Vincent therefore conceived the idea of forming an educational organisation whereby opportunities would be afforded these and others of improving themselves by a course of lectures and general reading, and the movement has been a great success and is rapidly spreading. I have lectured before thousands of these Chautauquans. They assemble at certain centres once a year, and on tho payment of forty cents arc entitled to attend all sorts of lectures, literary, historical, scientific, etc. Sometimes my audiences numbered eight and ten thousand people. In ISBS my health broke down, and I was advised to try a sea voyage. 1 accordingly went to England, where I began lecturing. Dr. Parker, Mr. Spurgeon, and others taking great interest in ray work. The Sunday-school Union organised n series of these lectures in England and Scotland, where I was engaged for three years and delivered four hundred lectures.'' "And what has been their general effect?" "'I have received many letters from all sorts and conditions of people telling me that my lectures have done them good, and that many who were inclined to doubt the Bible were led by my lectures to become tirm believers. Others have expressed their gratitude to me, and assured me they have greatly helped them in their Sundayschool work, and made the Bible an entirely different book to them. It is arduous work, but I feel it my duty to continue it." " 1 suppose you find a difference in your audiences as regards their knowledge of the Bible ?" "Oh, yes. In some places it is very striking. I can always tell by their applause whether they are familiar with Biblical history, and the passages which I quote. In America the people are well versed in their Bibles. In some of tho provincial towns in England they are not so well up. Bub in Scotland I found they all knew their Bibles thoroughly." "And what are your impressions about the colonies?" "I like the colonies very much. Your climate is superb, and reminds me very much of Palestine. Tho people in England do not understand what the colonies are. For instance, many when they heard I was going out to Australasia said to mo, 'What are you going to tho colonies for ? The people there won't appreciate you. They are a lot of rough people—farmers and squatters, and miners.' They have no idea that the colonies are so advanced. The impression at Home is that they are semicivilised places. And really, I myself«had no idea than you had such fine cities as Melbourne and Sydney. I thought Auckland was a small seaport town. But you are more advanced than many larger towns in England, and tho colonials have much more push and go than the home people. As for your climate, it is perfect, and as I have said, resembles very much that of Palestine." " Apropos of Palestine, what about its repeopling by the Jews ?" " The Jews are increasing. Indeed so many are Hocking to Palestine that last year the Turkish Government prohibited any more arriving. There are now about 2,3,000 in Jerusalem. They are mostly poor. There is no opening for rich Jews. Jerusalem will never be a commercial city. It always has been and always will be a religious centre. The people, the Arabs, are very un progressive and conservative. They cling to the old ways. If you ask them why they do not adopt modern im- : provements, they will answer you that their i fathers did as they do long before the Flood. That is a great phrase of theirs." In course of some further conversation Miss von Finkelstein stated that she had lectured in churches and chapels in England, sometimes, but not, in Eastern cos- ; tuine in the pulpit. The stage of a theatre, j however, was she fouud, the most con- j venient place, as it afforded scope for scenic display. "But," she added, "I found in England that there was a prejudice among religious people against such buildings. They associated a theatre with theatricals. That is not so here. It is not a building which makes a thing good or bad." After the termination or her New New Zealand tour Miss Von Finkelstien proceeds to Tasmania, and afterwards to Australia, thence she will proceed either to America or England. Before our representative took his leave of her, she showed him a massive and beautiful gold cross, studded with diamonds, which was presented to her in London on the eve of her departure for Australia.