Letter from Hezekiah Balch to Charles Coffin (December 15, 1803)
“I am told… [they] have [another] intire, new, and abominable exercise, which consists, in a large number of them collecting, and breaking wind behind, with all their might….”
Published Letter from Gideon Blackburn to Ashbel Green (January 20, 1804)
“The bodily exercise has assumed such a variety of shapes as to render it a truly herculian task to give an intelligent statement of it to any person who has never seen it. However, I do not hesitate to say, that it is evidently the Lord’s work, though marvellous in our eyes….”
Letter from William Hill to Ashbel Green (January 20, 1804)
“They have now the dancing exercise, the Jerking, exercise, the running exercise, the standing exercise, & even the shooting exercise…. I am afraid what I believe was a gracious visitation from heaven in the first instance will be brought into disgrace by these extravagances….”
Letter from Samuel M. Wallace to Anne “Nancy” Fleming (July 20, 1804)
“Those who withdrew themselves last fall from the Presbyterian Church, perhaps, go to greater lengths, than any set, or sect, of people ever did. The Tenesse exercise has got very comon among them….”
Letter from Samuel M. Wallace to Anne “Nancy” Fleming (November 2, 1804)
“The dissenters from the Presbyterian sect has increased in number considerably and still continue to be warmly engaged in religion. They are exercised with almost all the different kinds of exercise, that you have heard of in Tenesse and Kentucky….”
Published Letter by James Ward (November 8, 1804)
“[W]e have reason to fear, from what has appeared, that the jirks will check the work in a considerable degree; for many are so fearful, that they will not go to meeting, lest they should catch them….”
