was prepared for some strong reaction. Past
aberrations of enthusiasm were well-nigh forgotten, and large masses of
the population were unconsciously longing for its warmth and fire. It
was highly probable that an active religious movement was near at hand,
and its general nature might be fairly conjectured; its specific
character, its force, extent, and limits, would depend, under
Providence, upon the zeal and genius of its leaders.

Nothing could be more natural than that to many outside observers early
Methodism should have seemed a mere repetition of what England, in the
century before, had been only too familiar with. The physical phenomena
which manifested themselves under the influence of Wesley's and
Whitefield's preaching were in all points exactly the same as those of
which the annals of imaginative and excited religious feeling have in
every age been full. Swoons and strange convulsive agitations, however
impressive and even awe-inspiring to an uninformed beholder, were
undistinguishable from those, for example, which had given their name to
English Quakers[615] and French Convulsionists,[616] which were to be
read of in the Lives of Guyon and St. Theresa,[617] and which were a
matter of continual occurrence when Tauler preached in Germany.[618] It
is no part of this inquiry to dwell upon their cause and nature, or upon
the perplexity Wesley himself felt on the subject. Occasionally he was
mortified by the discovery of imposture or of superstitious credulity,
and something he was willing to attribute to natural causes.[619] On
the whole his opinion was that they might be rejoiced in as a glorious
sight,[620] visible evidences of life-giving spiritual agencies, but
that the bodily pain was quite distinct and due to Satan's
hindrance.[621] He sometimes added a needful warning that all such
physical disturbances were of a doubtful nature, and that the only tests
of spiritual change which could be relied upon were those indisputable
fruits of the Spirit which the Apostle Paul enumerates.[622] His less
guarded words closely correspond with what may be read in the journals
of G. Fox and other early Quakers. When he writes more coolly and
reflectively we are reminded not of the first fanatical originators of
that sect, but of what their distinguished apologist, Barclay, has said
of those 'pangs of the new birth' which have often accompanied the
sudden awakening to spiritual life in persons of strong and
undisciplin