Mrs Annie Besant.

Observer, Volume XV, Issue 828, 6 October 1894, Page 15

Mrs Annie Besant.

To-mobrow, Mrs Annie Besant, the most remarkable woman of the age, arrives here from Sydney. Mr C&rlyle Smythe, who is making the arrangements for her lectures in Auckland, informs us that her success in Sydney was phenomenal. From the opening night the Opera House was quite unable to contain the crowds that nocked to hear the great thinker and charming orator. The audience overflowed to the stage,leaving scarcely room for Mrs Besant and the chairman to stand. Amongst those who presided were: — Sir William Windeyer. Sir Henry Parkes, G.C.M.G., and Sir George Innes. The Argus, speakiag of the lectures in Melbourne, says : — ' There was a suggestion of the priestess about Mrs Besant as she came on, " clothed in white samite — mystic, wonderful.' Her voice, singularly musical in quality and responding readily to every touch of the spirit within, rose and fell with a pleasant cadence that never seemed monotonous, her words pouring forth with surprising fluency and force. In her views as to the duty of the Christian churches, Mrs Besant takes up a position curiously similar to that of the Bishop of Melbourne, who remarked recently that the pulpit was a place from which to preach the Gospel, not to lecture on social subjects." Lectures in Auckland are announced for Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.