“The news of our Country thro’ last season no doubt you have heard. I mean that concerning Religion. The meetings concerning this have been great. The Subjects affected in a very extraordinary manner. They fall down some as in swoning fits be quite motionless. Others are affected when they fall as if in a convulsive fit….”
“I was lately informed by a neighbour of mine, just returned from the Miami country, where Mr. McNamaar is now settled (he lately moved from Kentucke) that at such meetings there, they who fall down are strongly convulsed, and so violently agitated, that it will require two or three to hold one of them….”
“On the first Sabbath, the day after my arrival, soon after I began to speak the [cries] agonies and distress of the convicted drew my attention. Their bodies had all the appearance of convulsions….”
“We have now got the Silent, the jirking, the laughing, and the dancing also the [runing] & pointing exercises. Each one of these in their turns have staggered serious people but they are still as it were constrained to acknowledge this O Lord is thy work, and it is wondrous in our eyes….”
“[W]e Are exercised in A religious way we think. This is the Genus As general name for the thing; but there Are A great many specimens of this exercise. There is the jerking; this is the most Common. In addition to this, there is the dancing, Laughing, running, walking, pointing, fighting and falling exercise….”
“I saw one old lady spring from her seat, and pass a dozen times across the house in every direction, by a succession of leaps from two to six feet; and, to my astonishment, she never failed to light squarely and firmly upon a bench! “
