Preaching in eastern Missouri during the 1830s, Methodist circuit rider Jacob Lanius witnesses a woman seized by the barking exercise. Barking was closely related to the jerks, and yet Lanius’s puzzlement suggests that the rising generation of Methodist ministers had distanced themselves from the unruly somatic phenomena of the Great Revival. Contextual notes appear in square brackets.
Thursday 17 [1836]. Preached at a House near Brother Z. Hughes and blest God we had a glorious season. One woman took what used to be called in Tennessee the barking exercise. This was something I never witnessed before, and something that I am not prepared to account for on any principal.
Source
Jacob Lanius, diaries, 1833–1842, 435, Mss. 1147, State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia.
