r successfully to study the phenomena of this remarkable passage
in the history of the church, it is necessary to bear in mind the social
conditions that prevailed. A population _perfervido ingenio_, of a
temper peculiarly susceptible of intense excitement, transplanted into a
wild country, under little control either of conventionality or law,
deeply ingrained from many generations with the religious sentiment, but
broken loose from the control of it and living consciously in reckless
disregard of the law of God, is suddenly aroused to a sense of its
apostasy and wickedness. The people do not hear the word of God from
Sabbath to Sabbath, or even from evening to evening, and take it home
with them and ponder it amid the avocations of daily business; by the
conditions, they are sequestered for days together in the wilderness for
the exclusive contemplation of momentous truths pressed upon the mind
with incessant and impassioned iteration; and they remain together, an
agitated throng, not of men only, but of women and children. The student
of psychology recognizes at once that here are present in an unusual
combination the conditions not merely of the ready propagation of
influence by example and persuasion, but of those nervous, mental, or
spiritual infections which make so important a figure in the world's
history, civil, military, or religious. It is wholly in accord with
human nature that the physical manifestations attendant on religious
excitement in these circumstances should be of an intense and
extravagant sort.

And such indeed they were. Sudden outcries, hysteric weeping and
laughter, faintings, catalepsies, trances, were customary concomitants
of the revival preaching. Multitudes fell prostrate on the ground,
"spiritually slain," as it was said. Lest the helpless bodies should be
trampled on by the surging crowd, they were taken up and laid in rows on
the floor of the neighboring meeting-house. "Some lay quiet, unable to
move or speak. Some talked, but could not move. Some beat the floor with
their heels. Some, shrieking in agony, bounded about, it is said, like a
live fish out of water. Many lay down and rolled over and over for hours
at a time. Others rushed wildly over the stumps and benches, and then
plunged, shouting 'Lost! Lost!' into the forest."

As the revival went on and the camp-meeting grew to be a custom and an
institution, this nervous epidemic took on certain recognizable forms,
one of which wa