“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….”
“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….”
“Preached to a mixed multitude of Seceders, Presbyterians, Baptists, & Methodists. One took the jirks, another old lady shouted. People in general were serious….”
“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.]”
“[John Bryant Sr.] While feeling opposed [to Shaker worship practices] was taken with the jirks…. He seized a buckeye sapling, but was jerked into willing obedience & now has full faith in dancing!”
