“We ought, however, to have remembered that bodily convulsions, the jirks, &c. are never mentioned in scripture, as evidences of a graceless state, or a delusion of the devil; nor yet as evidences of a work of God’s grace. In a religious view, we ought to have thought but little of them….”
“[T]he subjects of this work receive no damage or injury whatever, and the most of them are exceedingly happy when they are thus exercised…. One may ask…, can they not be happy in religion and have the jirks?”
“The phenomenon of…suddenly falling or sinking down, under religious exercises, has not been uncommon in times of great excitement…. But the bodily agitation called the jerks is a very different affection….”
“[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….”
“Many extravagances prevailed during the intervals of the preaching, particularly among the Females: called here jerking, it appears to be similar to hysteric affection. Several were so much exhausted by these exertions as to fall to the ground apparently lifeless & were conveyed to the shade by the bystanders.”
“[O]ccasionally I attended [revival meetings in 1817], & witnessed the disorders of Jerking, dancing, swooning….”
