William Young, a wealthy Delaware industrialist, critiqued Felix Roberton’s Essay on Chorea Sancti Viti (1805; click here) in this published journal article. Young contended that the jerks were not a “bodily disease,” as Robertson had claimed, but rather a sensation created by the music and preaching of camp meetings, which overwhelms the “moral faculty” and produces a “re-action upon the nervous system, and consequent convulsive motions of body.” Like Robertson, Young relied on John Wilkinson’s published letter (click here) to establish his alternative etiology of the bodily exercises of the Great Revival.
IN the Medical and Physical Journal, part 1, vol. II, Dr. Robertson, of Nashville, denominates the exercises which have occurred at the camp-meetings in Tennessee, &c., an Epidemic Chorea; and, though not fond of disquisitions of this sort, I beg leave to offer a few observations in reply, and hope to disprove Dr. Robertson’s position.
The cogitations of conscience are generally hidden and inscrutable, but extraordinary impulses on the moral faculty are frequently manifested to observation. It is a commonly received maxim, that every operation of mind, and every act relating to religious worship should be treated with caution and liberality; but an attempt to explain such extraordinary exercises of mind, and gesticulations of body, as occurred in this case, is privileged by christian charity itself.
In considering this exercise as a bodily disease, Dr. Robertson must have overlooked, or not examined, the physiology of the mind. The ancient nosologists were often misled by mistaking symptoms for original affections, fi and an apparent similarity of symptoms formed the relationship of disease, and names were applied with out regard to the real nature or seat of the disorder: hence, an inflammation of the meninges of the brain was occurring at Camp-Meetings. Ill termed head-pleurisy, and thus, also, the agitations of religious exercise are called St. Vitus’s dance. The misapplication of terms in medicine was a fruitful source of error in the dark ages of the world, and it was hoped that physicians had absolved themselves from the tyranny of custom; but Dr. R. has either misnamed this affection, or mistaken the influence of a convulsive operation of the moral faculty upon the system for an idiopathic bodily disease.
The influence of physical causes upon the intellectual faculties, and especially upon the moral faculty, is too well known to admit of a single doubt, and the immediate operation of the feelings and passions of the mind upon the moral faculty have given rise to all those gesticulations of body, which have astonished a dispassionate public, and which Mr. Wilkinson has judiciously described.
From Mr. Wilkinson’s history it is evident, that feeling had a large share in producing the exercise; and the fact of its not having occurred among the Seceders, who are numerous in the same district, is a strong evidence in support of this position. The latter confine themselves to the use of the old Psalms, which are serious and doctrinal, and also to the old tunes, which are slow and plaintive; while the others use hymns of the most empassioned kind, and accompanied with melancholy music, of a quick movement.
“The effects of music upon the moral faculty,” says Dr. Rush, “have been felt and recorded in every country. Hence we are able to discover the vices and virtues of different nations by their tunes, as certainly as by their laws. The effects of music, when simply me chanical, upon the passions, are powerful and extensive. But it remains yet to determine the degrees of moral ecstacy that may be produced by an attack upon the ear, the reason, and the moral principle at the same time, by the combined powers of music and eloquence.
“The eloquence of the pulpit is nearly allied to music, in its effects upon the moral faculty. There must be a defect of eloquence in a preacher, who, with the sources for oratory which are contained in the Old and New Testaments, does not produce, in every man who hears him, at least a temporary love of virtue. I grant that the powers of eloquence cannot change men into christians, but it certainly possesses the power of changing brutes into men. Could the eloquence of the stage be properly directed, it is impossible to conceive the extent of its mechanical effects upon morals. The language and imagery of a Shakspeare, upon moral and religious subjects, poured upon the passions and the senses, in all the beauty and variety of dramatic representation, who could resist or describe their effects?”
To the combined influence of music and eloquence is added the excitement of camp-meetings, in which the sympathy of association conspires to give a sudden impulse to the moral faculty, which it can neither resist nor confine within ordinary limits; and the violent and irregular excitement produces a proportionate) re-action upon the nervous system, and consequent convulsive motions of body. These motions are of a mixed kind, Voluntary and involuntary. Sensation is not destroyed, nor the will suspended, but the inordinate re-action of the moral faculty upon the common sensorium, with equal suddenness and force, induces confused exercises of mind and mixed motions of body.
The stimulus of more common passions, as those of patriotism, of love, of social joy or grief, not unfrequently produce the most exalted acts of virtue, and the most debasing examples of vice. Man is the creature of feeling; hence, in sacred writ, the heart of man is addressed as the seat of his affections, both virtuous and vicious; and the moral faculty is represented by” the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world .”
A serious contemplation of the attributes of Deity gives rise to the most exalted sentiments of which the human mind is susceptible, and the force of religious excitement is oftentimes irresistible. Neither persecution nor famine could destroy it. Witness the christian martyrs, who suffered every torture which the evil genius of the age could invent, and were finally consumed at the stake, without evincing a single sensation of pain or regret; nay, who died exulting in the sacrifice of their lives, through an invincible sense of devotion. Mahometans and Pagans also endure many privations in their systems of devotion, and thousands of them have surrendered their lives to the enemies of their creed. If the revealed system of Christianity be true, mahometanism must be a delusion; and if an improper exercise of the moral faculty will excite men to endure torture and death, surely a sudden excitement of the same faculty, by the glorious realities of the gospel; a pathetic description of the bleeding hands and dying groans of an efficient Saviour; the exaltation and happiness of believers in time and eternity; and the endless miseries of the unbelieving in death, in judgment, and futurity, may reasonably be admitted to produce temporary gesticulations of body.
From this cursory view of the operations of the moral faculty, I think it is evident, that the exercises in question were improperly denominated chorea sancti viti; neither are we authorized to believe them to be a special “visitation from the Deity.” I, however, hope not to be accused of deteriorating this religious exercise; far, very far from this is my wish. I presume not to condemn the persons thus influenced, nor to detract from the sincerity of their devotion; but my wish is to remove the delusion of supposing it to be a bodily disease, and leave the intrinsic merits of the subject to Him, who “searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins of the children of men;” and who can direct the exercises of the synagogue and the camp to his own glory.
A critical attention to Mr. Wilkinson’s description of the rise and progress clearly evinces the nature and form of this affection. “The paroxysms (says Mr. W.) seldom returned but during attendance on religious worship;” hence they were merely occasional.
“It has varied from the beginning, and has been almost infinitely different and varied in different persons, and even in the same individual.”
Many of the gesticulations are “imitative of those actions which are common in domestic life, and chiefly peculiar to the female sex.”
“Some of the leading characteristics of the exercise, on its first appearance, as it respected women, were, that they took it with a convulsive agitation of the breast, and with apparent difficulty of breathing, accompanied with lamentable cries and ejaculations; to all which succeeded what is called the silent exercise.”
The subjects of these exercises “have an uncontroulable desire of attending upon divine worship, particularly that of the social kind;” and a strong “desire that all others should be in the same situation with themselves.”
Mr. W. considers all the movements of the affected as involuntary, but adds, “it is, however, equally evident, that numbers endeavour to excite and promote the exercise, among whom I may mention the principal of our clergy.”
If we combine the varied forms of the exercise, the imitative actions of many, the lamentable cries and ejaculations of others, the general desire of social communion, and the acknowledged efforts of the clergy, into one view, and consider “sensibility as the avenue to the moral faculty,” it will lead us to a knowledge of this singular affection. A propensity to imitation, arising from the sympathy of association, and the influence of society, in exciting passion and emotion, so universally affect mankind, that “he must be more or less than man, who kindles not in the common blaze” of tumultuous excitement.
The efforts of the clergy to excite and promote the exercise are avowed by Mr. W., and their powers of accomplishing the object must be admitted. Zeal, somewhat fervent, is certainly laudable in the preachers of the gospel, and the man of sensibility may not only become excited in the pulpit, but, if eloquent, or even declamatory, may impress the same sensations in his audience. Such were the powers of eloquence possessed by the famous Massillon, notwithstanding he read his sermons, “that he drew a whole audience, by an instantaneous impulse, upon their feet,” in terrific expectation of the terrors of the last judgment being about to fall upon them. If a Parisian audience could be thus excited, how much more easily may the congregated thousands of a western camp, predisposed by the sympathies of association, be aroused to tumultuous exercise.
Declamation is considered an essential part of pulpit oratory, as the feelings and passions are the avenues to the understanding; but whether it be useful, or laudable, to carry the work upon the passions so far as is now practised, I presume not to determine, but leave this question to the ministers of the gospel, and the Master of congregations whom they serve.
The desire of exercised persons, that “all others should be in the same way with themselves,” is perfectly natural. We find the same principle influencing all classes of society, and it was evinced by our mother Eve: when she had eaten of the fruit of knowledge, she desired Adam to partake with her, that he might become a co-partner in sensation, for “it was pleasant to her eyes.” But when the voice of justice sounded in their ears,’’ Adam, where art thou?” we find the moral faculty was excited; they were ashamed; and, conscious of guilt, had hidden themselves among the trees of the garden.
The desire of the truly pious man, that others should participate in the mercies of redemption, is one of the strongest emotions of his soul: it is of heavenly origin, and in nature divine. We find that our Saviour “wept” over Jerusalem, and lamented her apostacy, in the most tender strains of compassion; St. Paul was almost willing to become accursed for his kinsmen after the flesh; Dives begged and beseeched father Abraham to send one from the dead, to warn his brethren of his misery and their approaching ruin; and love to the brethren is a cardinal point of the christian’s faith; nay more, the joys of heaven will not be complete until “the congregation of the Saints” is accomplished.
To the clergy it more especially belongs to define the nature of this unusual affection; and if these cursory thoughts should excite their attention to the subject, the writer will be fully compensated. His sincere wish is to promote enquiry, and leave the decision to the dispassionate consideration of the public.
I am yours, &c.,
WILLIAM YOUNG.
February 20th, 1806.
Source
William Young, “Thoughts on the Exercises which Have Occurred at the Camp-Meetings in the Western Parts of Our Country,” Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, part 1, 3 (1808): 110–118.
