“That cases of real enthusiasm occurred at this and subsequent periods, is indeed allowed. There are always nervous, dreamy, and excitable people to be found; and the emotion produced among these would often be communicated by natural sympathy. No one could be blamed for this, unless he had encouraged the excitement for its own sake, or taught the people to regard it as a sign of grace, which most assuredly Mr. Wesley never did. Nor is it correct to represent these effects, genuine and fictitious together, as peculiar to Methodism. Great and rapid results were produced in the first ages of Christianity, but not without ‘outcries,’ and strong corporeal as well as mental emotions. Like effects often accompanied the preaching of eminent men at the Reformation; and many of the Puritan and Nonconformist ministers had similar successes in our own country. In Scotland, and also among the grave Presbyterians of New England, previous to the rise of Methodism, the ministry of faithful men had been attended by very similar circumstances; and, on a smaller scale, the same results have followed the ministry of modern missionaries of different religious societies in various parts of the world. It may be laid down as a principle established by fact, that whenever a zealous and faithful ministry is raised up, after a long, spiritual dearth, the early effects of that ministry are not only powerful, but often attended with extraordinary circumstances; nor are such extraordinary circumstances necessarily extravagancies because they are not common. It is neither irrational nor unscriptural to suppose, that times of great national darkness and depravity should require a strong remedy; and that the attention of the people should be roused by circumstances which could not fail to be noticed by the most unthinking. We do not attach primary importance to secondary circumstances; but they are not to be wholly disregarded. The Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still small voice; yet that still small voice might not have been heard, except by minds roused from their inattention by the shaking of the earth and the sounding of the storm.” Isaac Taylor writes:—