rit, we are not ascribing more merit to her
book than is allowed by the Church to all those of the same class. They
are all edifying, and may serve to promote piety, which is their sole
object. We must not exaggerate their importance by holding as an
absolute fact that they proceed from divine inspiration, a favour so
great that its existence in any particular case should not be credited
save with the utmost circumspection.

With regard, however, to our present publication, it may be urged
that, considering the superior talents of the transcriber of Sister
Emmerich's narrations, the language and expressions which he has made use
of may not always have been identical with those which she employed. We
have no hesitation whatever in allowing the force of this argument.
Most fully do we believe in the entire sincerity of M. Clement
Brentano, because we both know and love him, and, besides, his
exemplary piety and the retired life which he leads, secluded from a
world in which it would depend but on himself to hold the highest
place, are guarantees amply sufficient to satisfy any impartial mind of
his sincerity. A poem such as he might publish, if he only pleased,
would cause him to be ranked at once among the most eminent of the
German poets, whereas the office which he has taken upon himself of
secretary to a poor visionary has brought him nothing but contemptuous
raillery. Nevertheless, we have no intention to assert that in giving
the conversations and discourses of Sister Emmerich that order and
coherency in which they were greatly wanting, and writing them down in
his own way, he may not unwittingly have arranged, explained, and
embellished them. But this would not have the effect of destroying the
originality of the recital, or impugning either the sincerity of the
nun, or that of the writer.

The translator professes to be unable to understand how any man can
write for mere writing's sake, and without considering the probable
effects which his work will produce. This book, such as it is, appears
to him to be at once unusually edifying, and highly poetical. It is
perfectly clear that it has, properly speaking, no literary pretensions
whatever. Neither the uneducated maiden whose visions are here relate,
nor the excellent Christian writer who had published them in so entire
a spirit of literary disinterestedness, ever had the remotest idea of
such a thing. And yet there are not, in our opinion, many highly
worked-up