“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. “
“[N]ow I left for cincinati again and on my way heard of the New light Presbytarians…and heard all sort of bad reports a bout them they said that…they would fall and lay for hours and…others jerk backwards and forwards with somuch force that a ladys hair wold crack like a wip….”
“There is something in the jerks unexplainable….”
“Here I first saw what was called the jerks, a very strange as well as disgusting exercise….”
