“I suppose there are but few individuals in the United States, who have not at least heard of the unparalleled blaze of enthusiastic religion which burst forth in the western country about the year 1800…. It was under these circumstances that some found themselves unable by voluntary efforts to suppress the contraction of their muscles….”
“Bodily exercise profiteth little….”
“When any ask me to explain all these antics or exercises, I say I do not explain what I do not understand. Many who had these exercises did not understand them—would not account for them. I am not called to analyze or methodize the jerks: have no tools for that work….”
“In the southern parts of our bounds, the extraordinary revivals of religion have considerably declined; bodily agitations are gradually disappearing….”
“[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?”
