MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
advertisement was worded, it signi- 
fies that Mr. Pomeroy always said 
her calling was from the devil; on 
the other hand, Joanna and her wit- 
Nesses protest that what she had 
signed was merely an acknowledg- 
ment that Mr. Pomeroy had said, 
after her book was printed, the de- 
vil had instigated her to print his 
name in it. ‘This would not be 
worthy of mention, if it were not 
for the very extraordinary situation 
into which this gentleman has brought 
himse!f. Wishing to be clear of the 
connection’ in which he had so un- 
luckily engaged, he burnt the sealed 
papers which had been intrusted to 
his care. From that time all the 
Joannians, who are now no incon- 
siderable number, regard him as the 
arch-apostate. He is the Jehoiakim 
who burnt Jeremiah’s roll of pro- - 
phecies, he is their Judas Iscariot, 
a second Lucifer, son of the Morn- 
ing. They call upon him to pro- 
duce these prophecies, which she 
boldly asserts, and they implicitly 
believe, have all been fulfilled, and 
therefore would convince the world 
of the truth of her mission. In vain 
does Mr. Pomeroy answer that he 
has burnt these unhappy papers :-— 
in an unhappy hour for himself did 
he burn them! day after day long 
letters are dispatched to him, some- 
times from Joanna herself, some- 
times from her brother, sometimes 
from one of her four-and-twenty 
elders, filled with exhortation, in- 
' vective, texts of scripture, and de- 
nunciations of the law in this world, 
and the devilin the next ; and these 
letters the prophetess prints, for this 
very sufficient reason—that all her 
believers purchase them. Mr. Po- 
-meroy sometimes treats them with 
1017 
contempt, at other times he appeals 
to theircompassion, and besceches 
them, if they have any bowels of 
Christian charity, to have compas- 
sion on him and Jet him rest, and 
no lenger add to the inconceivable 
and irreparable injuries which they 
have already occasioned him. If he 
is silent, no matter, on they go, 
printing copics of all which they 
write, and when he is worried into 
replying, his answers also serve to 
swell Joanna’s books. In this man- 
Ner is this poor man, because he has 
recovered his senses, persecuted by 
a crazy prophetess, and her four- 
and-twenty crazy elders, who seem 
determined not to desist, till, one 
way or other, they have made him 
as ripe for Bedlam as they are them- 
selves, 
The books which she sends into 
the world are written partly in 
prose, partly in rhyme, all the verse 
and the greater part of the prose 
being delivered in the character of 
the Almighty! It is not possible to 
convey an adequate idea of this un- 
paralleled and unimaginable non- 
sense by any other means than literal 
transcript.* Her hand-writing was 
legibly bad, so that at last she 
found it convenient to receive orders 
to throw away the pen and deliver 
her oracles orally ; and the words 
flow from her faster than her scribes 
can write them down. This may 
be well believed, for they are 
words and nothing else: a mere 
rhapsody of texts, vulgar dreams 
and vulgar interpretations, vulgar 
types and vulgar applications :— 
the vilest string of words in the 
vilest doggerel verse, which has no 
other connection than what the 
vilest rhymes have suggested, she 
* See the end of the letter. 
vents 
