“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….”
“[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….”
“Preached to a mixed multitude of Seceders, Presbyterians, Baptists, & Methodists. One took the jirks, another old lady shouted. People in general were serious….”
“[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?”
“One young woman had what I would call the whirling exercise…. It far exceeded anything of the kind I ever saw. I was told that she had had the jirks nearly 3 years…. Afterwards I remonstrated with some of them and cautioned them.”
