The Portland daily press., 1881-02-15
KALEVALA.
Miss Selma Borg's Lecture.

Last evening Miss Selma Borg, the cele-
brated representative of Finland in America,
delivered the opening lecture in her course at
Y. NJ G. A. Hall to not very large but a
deeply interested audience. So recently as
Wednesday the PRESS published carefully
prepared history of this remarkable wo man,
and, among our leading citizens, there was
naturally much anxiety to see and hear her.
The lady was introduced by Bishop Nicely in
few graceful remarks when Miss Borg took
her place at the reading desk, and from that
point her we'll modulated, pleasant-toned
voice, her earnest, even at times awesome,
manner, her quaint accent and, when abiding
to something of especial Importance, her en-
thusiasm impressed and charmed her hearers
Her subject was the Creation" the first
rune song of the Kalevala accompanied by in
troductory remarks upon its origin. Ilmatar
the daughter of the air, floats in the wide re-
gons of space, whence she descends upon the
waters borne By powerful storm wind. The
bird of heaven flying in distress seeks place
for her eggs which she at last deposits upon
the knee of Ilmatar, which the compassionate
goddess has lifted from the waves to receive
of iron, roll into the sea where they are brok-
en-. The fragments become sun, moon and
stars. Countless ages go by and at last Vain
emoinen, the mythical singer and seer, is born
of Ilmatar, his high mother, from his birth
possessing wisdom. Wainemoinen is said to
have been 'born old.' The spirit has no age
This is but brief extract from the first song
in this wonderful epic "The Creation" which
may prove to be the most ancient account
handed down to posterity from that great my
biological epoch which preceded our own alb
stract epoch of conscious mental reasoning.
Its value and distinctive beauties take rank
with the great epics of the world-t the Maha-
bharata, the Shah-Nameh the Iliad and the
Nibelungenlied. Like these, it will be seen,
it is a collection of sacred and legendary songs,
ancient Uralo-Altai race, of which the
Firms, of Finland, are the direct descendants,
until the latter part of the last century, when
it was collected and, at later period, 1854,
published in the form of the Kalevala volume.
1t reveals to us the religious and poetic senti-
ment of that people, whose spirituality and
ideality, whose heart and soul communion
with Nature as an expression of the god-life
and principle, laid the foundations of char
acter, the essential elements of which are,
purity, tenderness, strength and an integrity
which no political connections, no change of
physical mitieu," as Tame expresses it, has
in any way affected. They saw God, God of
love and freedom. in every thing in the dew
drop, in the sunbeam, in the trembling leaf,
in the ocean. wave, in the death-like frost of
the icy North, in all nature, and starting from
this fundamental and religious sentime MT and
belief, they ripened into a spirituality, fine,
lofty and sublime, to degree surpassed by no
people, ancient or modern, and this was owing
in great measure to the brotherhood they
worshipped, the motherhood that bore the
child, nursed his early infancy, and gave him
his earliest instruction.
Miss Borg read many passages of the Kale-
vala, knowledge of which inspired Long
fellows Hiawatha.
The next lecture will be delivered Wednes-
day afternoon.