the rest the austere, pious Hecquet, and after him Lorry,
attributed the conduct of the Convulsionnaires to natural causes. Men of
distinction among the upper classes, as, for instance, Montgeron the
deputy, and Lambert an ecclesiastic (obt. 1813), stood forth as the
defenders of this sect; and the numerous writings which were exchanged on
the subject served, by the importance which they thus attached to it, to
give it stability. The revolution finally shook the structure of this
pernicious mysticism. It was not, however, destroyed; for even during
the period of the greatest excitement the secret meetings were still kept
up; prophetic books, by Convulsionnaires of various denominations, have
appeared even in the most recent times, and only a few years ago (in
1828) this once celebrated sect still existed, although without the
convulsions and the extraordinarily rude aid of the brethren of the
faith, which, amidst the boasted pre-eminence of French intellectual
advancement, remind us most forcibly of the dark ages of the St. John's
dancers.

6. Similar fanatical sects exhibit among all nations of ancient and
modern times the same phenomena. An overstrained bigotry is in itself,
and considered in a medical point of view, a destructive irritation of
the senses, which draws men away from the efficiency of mental freedom,
and peculiarly favours the most injurious emotions. Sensual ebullitions,
with strong convulsions of the nerves, appear sooner or later, and
insanity, suicidal disgust of life, and incurable nervous disorders, are
but too frequently the consequences of a perverse, and, indeed,
hypocritical zeal, which has ever prevailed, as well in the assemblies of
the Maenades and Corybantes of antiquity as under the semblance of
religion among the Christians and Mahomedans.

There are some denominations of English Methodists which surpass, if
possible, the French Convulsionnaires; and we may here mention in
particular the Jumpers, among whom it is still more difficult than in the
example given above to draw the line between religious ecstasy and a
perfect disorder of the nerves; sympathy, however, operates perhaps more
perniciously on them than on other fanatical assemblies. The sect of
Jumpers was founded in the year 1760, in the county of Cornwall, by two
fanatics, who were, even at that time, able to collect together a
considerable party. Their general doctrine is that of the Methodists,
and claims our consid