Excerpt from the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (May 25, 1808)
“In the southern parts of our bounds, the extraordinary revivals of religion have considerably declined; bodily agitations are gradually disappearing….”
Excerpt from the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (May 24, 1809)
“[B]odily agitations, where they had appeared, have almost wholly subsided, and have given place to calm inquiry into the great and leading doctrines of the gospel….”
Excerpts from Joseph Thomas’s Life of the Pilgrim (November 10, 1810–May 5, 1811)
“[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?”
Thomas Cleland’s Published Letter on “Bodily Affections” (ca. 1812–1824)
“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….”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Abraham Snethen (ca. 1814)
“[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….”
