compositions calculated to produce an effect in any degree
comparable to that which will be brought about by the perusal of this
unpretending little work. It is our hope that it will make a strong
impression even upon worldlings, and that in many hearts it will
prepare the way for better ideas,--perhaps even for a lasting change of
life.

In the next place, we are not sorry to call public attention in some
degree to all that class of phenomena which preceded the foundation of
the Church, which has since been perpetuated uninterruptedly, and which
too many Christians are disposed to reject altogether, either through
ignorance and want of reflection, or purely through human respect. This
is a field which has hitherto been but little explored historically,
psychologically, and physiologically; and it would be well if
reflecting minds were to bestow upon it a careful and attentive
investigation. To our Christian readers we must remark that this work
has received the approval of ecclesiastical authorities. It has been
prepared for the press under the superintendence of the two late
Bishops of Ratisbonne, Sailer and Wittman. These names are but little
known in France; but in Germany they are identical with learning,
piety, ardent charity, and a life wholly devoted to the maintenance and
propagation of the Catholic faith. Many French priests have given their
opinion that the translation of a book of this character could not but
tend to nourish piety, without, however, countenancing that weakness of
spirit which is disposed to lend more importance in some respects to
private than to general revelations, and consequently to substitute
matters which we are simply permitted to believe, in the place of those
which are of faith.

We feel convinced that no one will take offence at certain details
given on the subject of the outrages which were suffered by our divine
Lord during the course of his passion. Our readers will remember the
words of the psalmist: 'I am a worm and no man; the reproach of men, and
the outcast of the people;' (Ps 22:6) and those of the Apostle: 'Tempted in
all things like as we are, without sin.' (Heb 4:15). Did we stand in need
of a precedent, we should request our readers to remember how plainly
and crudely Bossuet describes the same scenes in the most eloquent of
his four sermons on the Passion of our Lord. On the other hand, there
have been so many grand platonic or rhetorical sentences in the books
publ