MRS. HAMPSON.

Observer, Volume 1, Issue 18, 15 January 1881, Page 170

MRS. HAMPSON.

MKS. Hampson, the lady evangelist, has concluded her series of revival services in Auckland, and I therefore assume the present a suitable time for me to expound my opinions of her and her alleged mission. To plunge, then, at once in medias res, I will say that she is a woman of considerable fluency of speech, and that this natural gift is enhanced by a knowledge of elocution — but here I must stop. .She is comparatively illiterate, and her unfamiliarity with even sonic of the simplest grammatical rules leads her very frequently to the^ unconscious commission of the grossest solecisms. She has graphic descriptive powers, and her disctmrses are therefore interlarded with anecdotes and illustrations, many of the former highly coloured, and not a few of the latter open to objection on the ground of coarseness or want of refinement. Her language is colloquial rather than declamatory or didactic, and her address altogether is an ad homincm- appeal. She is earnest, sometimes impassioned, and I fully believe that she is sincere and conscientious. Take her all in all, she is a well-meaning woman of great natural ability, which, had it been cultivated, would undoubtedly have raised her into prominence in the literary world. Her manner, and the diction of her deliverances as well as her bearing towards assumed enquirers, indicate pretty accurately the sphere of life in which she has been brought up and the character of her religious associations. She does not stand on ceremony, is ready and blunt of speech, and in her disregard of correct phraseology perpetrates scores of equivoques. She evidently believes in mesmeric influence, for I have noticed that after a sensational address delivered in a heated hall, she loses no time in making her rounds, and that in addressing any person upon religioiis subjects, her invariable practice is to seize in her own the hand of her vis-a-Vis, bend over him or her, and look steadily into his eyes, while speaking to him. She always starts upon the assumption, if the person addressed be not disposed to avow himself "a miserable sinner," that he is ■wilfully denying God, or maliciously cherishing doubts which should not exist, and her utterances are consequently not of a very respectful kind. She remonstrates, urges, threatens, and finally boxinces, and in the bounceable mood I have heard her say some very insolent things. She works upon the feelings, and having an air of plausibility about her, with a perfect torrent of words, she is most successful with impressionable people. She fills them with a kind of exaltation at the time, which they mistake for that softening of an indurated heart so loudly proclaimed the unmistakable preliminary to^ the mystical process of conversion. The feelings are greatly exercised, but the head is not touched, and therefore the effects gradually evaporate after the operating cause has been removed. In physique, Mrs. Hampson is a short, stout woman of comely appearance. Her eyes are prominent, and her features generally large and well-defined, while her long hair is allowed to hang loosely about her shoulders. I am not competent to criticise her dress, but I think it accords with her station. Beta.