“On Monday morning I preached. I was preceded by the venerable Van Pelt, who, having preached a short and pithy sermon, sat down, with the congregation bathed in tears. There was no appearance of jerks. I took the stand like most of men who know but little and fear nothing, and undertook to account for the jerks. The preachers behind me looked as if they were alarmed, the audience seemed astonished at the young man. I viewed it as a judgment on that wicked community. This led me to take a compendious view of nations, to show that God’s providence was just, as well as merciful. Though He bore long, His judgments were sure to come.... I took occasion to dwell on the rise and progress of Methodism in this country, and the cruel persecutions its professors had met from their neighbors. I quoted their taunting language: ‘How, the Methodists are a pack of hypocrites, and could refrain from shouting if they would.’ I made a pause, then exclaimed, at the top of my voice: ‘_Do you leave off jerking if you can?_’ It was thought more than five hundred commenced jumping, shouting, and jerking. There was no more preaching that day. One good old mother in Israel admonished me, and said I had just done it in order to set them to jerking.” The “jerks” have never been satisfactorily accounted for. Some persons have attributed the manifestations to the influence of witchcraft. But this superstition failed to fasten itself upon Western civilization as it unfortunately did on the Eastern States; and the witches imported into the North-west were so few and insignificant in character that none of the tribe ever reached recognition to an extent sufficient to obtain more than a mere mention in the statute books of Ohio. They made but little public history. In 1828, there was a court case in Lawrence county, involving the individuality of those operating the “black art,” growing out of an action to recover on a warranty given in a bill of sale of a horse. The horse proved unsatisfactory, if not unsound. And it was claimed the horse was docile and all right, excepting for frequent periodical “spells,” in which he would stop in the midst of routine work, and, after a short pause, would rear, kick, plunge, and strike out right and left, uttering unearthly cries, foaming at the mouth, and trembling, showing great fatigue and fear. All these alarming symptoms would pass off in a short time, and the animal would again resume its normal condition and in all respects a docile and well educated beast. It was during one of the animal’s normal periods that the defendant sold it to the plaintiff, making the usual warranty. Soon after, while the animal was quietly drawing the family to a country church, he commenced kicking and screaming, until he demolished a new wagon and tore down the “worm fences” in the vicinity of the transaction, and suit was brought upon the warranty to recover the money.