38 BIOGRAPHY OF. -
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eared cordially united in it—of one mind and one soul,and the salvation of sinners seemed to be the great » object of all. We all engaged in singing the samesongs of praise—all united in prayer—all preached thesame things—free salvation urged upon all by faith andrepentance. A particular description of this meeting .would fill a large volume, and then the half would notbe told. ‘The numbers converted will be known onlyin eternity. Many things transpired there, which wereso much like miracles, that if they were not, they hadthe same effects as miracles on infidels and unbelievers; -for many of them by these were convinced that Jesuswas the Christ, and bowed in submission to him. Thismeeting continued six or seven days and nights, andwould have continued longer, but provisions for such amultitude failed in the neighborhood. To this meeting many had come from Ohio and otherdistant parts, who returned home and diffused the samespirit in their neighborhoods, and the same works fol-lowed. So low had religion sunk, and such careless- ness universally had prevailed, that I have thought thatnothing common could have arrested the attention ofthe world; therefore these uncommon agitations weresent for this purpose. However, this was their effectupon the community. As I have seen no history ofthese bodily agitations of that day, but from the pens ofenemies, or scorners; and as [have been an eye and earwitness of them from the beginning, and am now overthree score and ten years of age, on the brink of eter- nity, into which almost all of the old witnesses have en-tered, therefore I will endeavor to give a description ofthem ina distinct chapter, for your information. > a wa ete Tw eS ees [| Ue) h hue ~ ~~ o- a ik Dele _- = yr* oye ee i. i » BARTON W. STONE. 39CHAPTER VI. ia | . » = An account of the remarkable religious exercises, witnessed in the begin-ning of the 19th century. Tue bodily agitations or exercises, attending the ex-citement in the beginning of this century, were various,and called by various names ;—as, the falling exercise—the jerks—the dancing exercise—the barking exer-cise—the laughing and singing exercise, &c.—The fall-ing exercise was very common among all classes, thesaint ‘sinners Of every age and of every grade, fromthe philosopher to the clown. ‘The subject of this ex-ercise would, generally, with a piercing scream, falllike a log on the floor, earth, or mud, and appear asdead. Of thousands of similar cases, I will mentionone. At a meeting, two gay young ladies, sisters,were standing together attending to the exercises andpreaching at the time. Instantly they both fell, with ashriek of distress, and lay formore than an hour appa-rently in a lifeless state. ‘Their mother, a pious Baptist,was in great distress, fearing they would. not revive.At length they began to exhibit symptoms of life, bycrying fervently for mercy, and then relapsed into thesame death-like state, with an awful gloom on their coun-tenances. » After awhile, the gloom o face of onewas succeeded by a heavenly smile, and she cried out,precious Jesus, and rose up and spoke of the love ofGod—the preciousness of Jesus, and of the glory of thegospel, to the surrounding pate in language almostsuperhuman, and pathetically exhorted all to repent-ance. Ina little while after, the other sister was simi-larly exercised. From that time they became remark-ably pious members of the church. * @ _I have seen very many pious persons fall in the same _way, from a sense of the danger of their unconverted.children, brothers, or sisters—from a sense of the‘dan-ger of their neighbors, and of the sinful world. I have a. "
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