The sequel need scarcely be
told. The fear of being carried out of the church, and into the
water, acted like a charm; not a single Naiad was made, and the
worthy minister for many years had reason to boast of one of the
best regulated congregations in Scotland. As the physician above
alluded to was attending divine service in the kirk of Baliasta,
on the Isle of Unst, a female shriek, the indication of a
convulsion fit, was heard; the minister, Mr. Ingram, of Fetlar,
very properly stopped his discourse until the disturber was
removed; and after advising all those who thought they might be
similarly affected to leave the church, he gave out in the
meantime a psalm. The congregation was thus preserved from
further interruption; yet the effect of sympathy was not
prevented, for as the narrator of the account was leaving the
church he saw several females writhing and tossing about their
arms on the green grass, who durst not, for fear of a censure from
the pulpit, exhibit themselves after this manner within the sacred
walls of the kirk.
In the production of this disorder, which no doubt still exists,
fanaticism certainly had a smaller share than the irritable state
of women out of health, who only needed excitement, no matter of
what kind, to throw them into prevailing nervous paroxysms.
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