moonkv] FRENCH PROPHETS JUMPERS 939 



intelligent classes, notwithstanding which the infection spread far and 

 wide. We are told that they " were wrought upon in a very extraordi- 

 nary manner, not only in their minds, but also in their physical systems. 

 Tiny had visions and trances and were subject to violent agitations of 

 body. Men and women, and even little children, were so exercised 

 that spectators were struck with great wonder and astonishment. 

 Their powerful admonitions and prophetic warnings were heard and 

 received with reverence and awe." 



At one time Charles Wesley hail occasion to stop for the night with 

 a gentleman who belonged to the sect. Wesley was unaware of the 

 fact until, as they were about to go to bed, his new friend suddenly fell 

 into a violent fit and began to gobble like a turkey. Wesley was 

 frightened and began exorcising him, so that he soon recovered from 

 the fit, when they went to bed, all hough the evangelist confesses that 

 he himself did not sleep very soundly with Satan so near him. 



Some time afterward Wesley with several companions visited a 

 prophetess of the sect, as he says, to try whether the spirits came 

 from ('rod. She was a young woman of agreeable speech and manner. 

 "Presently she leaned back in her chair and had strong workings in her 

 breast and uttered deep sighs. Her head and her hands and by turns 

 every part of her body were affected with convulsive motions. This 

 continued about ten minutes. Then she began to speak with a clear, 

 strong voice, but so interrupted with the workings, sighings, and con- 

 tortions of her body that she seldom brought forth half a sentence 

 together. What she said was chiefly in spiritual words, and all as in 

 the person of God, as if it were the language of immediate inspiration." 

 (Southey's Wish;/, /. and Emus' Shakers.) 



JUMPERS 



About 1740 a similar extravagant sect, known as the .lumpers, arose 

 in Wales. According to the description yiven by Wesley, their exer 

 cises were a very exact parallel of the Ghost dance. "After the preach- 

 ing was over anyone who pleased gave out a verse of a hymn, and this 

 they sung over and over again, with all their might and main, thirty or 

 forty times, till some of them worked themselves into a sort of drunken- 

 ness or madness; they were then violently agitated, and leaped up and 

 down in all manner of postures frequently for hours together." A con- 

 temporary writer states that he had seen perhaps ten thousand at a 

 single meeting of the Jumpers shouting out in the midst of the sermon 

 and ready to leap for joy. (Southey's Wesley, II.) 



METHODISTS 



About the same time the Methodists originated in England under 

 Wesley and Whitetield, and their assemblies were characterized by all 

 the hysteric and convulsive extravagance which they brought with 

 them to this country, and which is not even vet extinct in the south. 



