EPIDEMIC CONVULSIONS. 499 



Multitudes, under pungent preaching, were violently agitated, uttering 

 loud cries, shaking, trembling, bleeding at the nose, the minister pro- 

 moting the uproar by urging them not to stifle their convictions. The 

 shriek, or the shout, it is stated, never rose from one, but that others 

 joined the outcry.* The early career of John Wesley is well known 

 to have been marked by similar disorders. In his journal he records 

 numerous instances of men and women dropping to the ground under 

 his preaching " as if struck by lightning," ten or a dozen praying at 

 once. They had also prevailed extensively in New Zealand half a cen- 

 tury before they became epidemic in Kentucky. The elder Edwards 

 has left an instructive account of the bodily agitations which accom- 

 panied the revivals of religion from 1735-'42. Many instances are 

 given of fainting, falling, trance, numbness, outcries, and convulsions, 

 and he relates that some of the subjects lost their reason. f The epi- 

 demic of Kentucky spread more widely, and persisted for a longer 

 time, as well as in more extravagant forms. It continued to reappear 

 for several years, and involved a district of country extending from 

 Ohio to the mountains of Tennessee, and even into the old settlements 

 in the Carolinas. Lorenzo Dow relates that, at a religious meeting in 

 the court-house of Knoxville, when the Governor of Tennessee was 

 present, he saw one hundred and fifty people "jerking" at one time. 

 But at other places the frenzy reached a greater height. It was com- 

 puted that, at a religious meeting in Kentucky, not less than thi*ee 

 thousand persons fell in convulsions to the ground. 



The extraordinary religious excitement in which these nervous dis- 

 orders took their rise commenced in Logan County, Kentucky, under 

 the preaching of Rev. James McGready, described as a man of " hide- 

 ous visage and thunder-tones," with a highly impassioned style of elo- 

 quence. X The excitement abated soon, but was renewed in a more 

 intense form three years later, and continued to grow and deepen until 

 it reached its height about the year 1800. Its effects were described 

 by this fiery preacher as at that time " exceeding everything his eyes 

 had ever beheld upon earth." Families came in wagons, forty, fifty, 

 and one hundred miles to attend the meetings, and it became necessary 

 to establish camps for their accommodation. These camp-meetings 

 generally continued four days, from Friday to Tuesday morning, but 

 sometimes they lasted a week. One succeeded another in rapid suc- 

 cession, and thus the fervor of religious feeling was kept up. The 

 woods and paths leading to the camp-ground seemed alive with people. 

 " The laborer," says Dr. Davidson, in the work just quoted, " quitted 

 his task ; age snatched his crutch ; youth forgot his pastimes ; the 

 plow was left in the furrow ; the deer enjoyed a respite upon the 

 mountains ; business of all kinds was suspended ; dwelling-houses were 

 deserted ; whole neighborhoods were emptied ; bold hunters, and so- 



* Rees's " Cyclopaedia," article " Imitation." f Edwards on " Revivals." 



X Dr. Davidson's " History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky." 



