“I can never forget one Sabbath, standing on a floor to preach: Brother Christie, a pious and upright man, the class-leader, was standing close by me; and while we were repeating and singing the first hymn, he was taken with the jerks, knocked the hymn book out of my hand, and gave my unfortunate nose a hard rap….”
“These strange exercises that have excited so much wonder in the western country came in toward the last of the revival, and were, in the estimation of some of the more pious, the chaff of the work. Now it was that the humiliating and often disgusting exercises of dancing, laughing, jerking, barking like dogs, or howling like wolves, and rolling on the ground, manifested themselves….”
“O Lord, if thou wilt grant me the blessing she seems to enjoy, I will willingly have the jerks or anything else thou may please to put upon [me.]”
“There were skeptics who thought they could keep from jerking if they wished, but if any one made sport of it, they were sure to have it the next time they were in a crowd. “
“I seen a woman have a fit in the morning & the man at knight the first that I ever saw have Convulsion fits. To see the Goodness & the mercy of God in preserving his people how thankful ought I to be….”
“There is something in the jerks unexplainable….”
