last I remember that time was falling back on the ground with the same
unseen hand on my throat. I don't know how long I lay there or what
was going on. None of my folks were present. When I came to myself,
there were a crowd around me praising God. The very heavens seemed to
open and pour down rays of light and glory. Not for a moment only, but
all day and night, floods of light and glory seemed to pour through my
soul, and oh, how I was changed, and everything became new. My horses
and hogs and even everybody seemed changed."

This man's case introduces the feature of automatisms, which in
suggestible subjects have been so startling a feature at revivals
since, in Edwards's, Wesley's and Whitfield's time, these became a
regular means of gospel-propagation. They were at first supposed to be
semi-miraculous proofs of "power" on the part of the Holy Ghost; but
great divergence of opinion quickly arose concerning them. Edwards, in
his Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England, has to defend
them against their critics; and their value has long been matter of
debate even within the revivalistic denominations.[138] They
undoubtedly have no essential spiritual significance, and although
their presence makes his conversion more memorable to the convert, it
has never been proved that converts who show them are more persevering
or fertile in good fruits than those whose change of heart has had less
violent accompaniments. On the whole, unconsciousness, convulsions,
visions, involuntary vocal utterances, and suffocation, must be simply
ascribed to the subject's having a large subliminal region, involving
nervous instability. This is often the subject's own view of the matter
afterwards. One of Starbuck's correspondents writes, for instance:--

[138] Consult William B. Sprague: Lectures on Revivals of Religion,
New York, 1832, in the long Appendix to which the opinions of a large
number of ministers are given.

"I have been through the experience which is known as conversion. My
explanation of it is this: the subject works his emotions up to the
breaking point, at the same time resisting their physical
manifestations, such as quickened pulse, etc., and then suddenly lets
them have their full sway over his body. The relief is something
wonderful, and the pleasurable effects of the emotions are experienced
to the highest degree."

There is one form of sensory automatism which possibly deserves special