And what an idea of the sacred was theirs!  The gentleness, the mercy, the loving kindness that are of God so seldom enter into those ancient discussions that such attributes are almost negligible.  Michael Wigglesworth’s poem, The Day of Doom, published in 1662, may be considered as an authoritative treatise on the theology of the Puritans; for it not only was so popular as to receive several reprints, but was sanctioned by the elders of the church themselves.  If this was orthodoxy—­and the proof that it was is evident—­it was of a sort that might well sour and embitter the nature of man and fill the gentle soul of womanhood with fear and dark forebodings.  We well know that the Puritans thoroughly believed that man’s nature was weak and sinful, and that the human soul was a prisoner placed here upon earth by the Creator to be surrounded with temptations.  This God is good, however, in that he has given man an opportunity to overcome the surrounding evils.

“But I’m a prisoner,
Under a heavy chain;
Almighty God’s afflicting hand,
Doth me by force restrain.

* * * * *

“But why should I complain
That have so good a God,
That doth mine heart with comfort fill
Ev’n whilst I feel his rod?

* * * * *

“Let God be magnified,
Whose everlasting strength
Upholds me under sufferings
Of more than ten years’ length.”

The Day of Doom is, in the main, its author’s vision of judgment day, and, whatever artistic or theological defects it may have, it undeniably possesses realism.  For instance, several stanzas deal with one of the most dreadful doctrines of the Puritan faith, that all infants who died unbaptized entered into eternal torment—­a theory that must have influenced profoundly the happiness and woe of colonial women.  The poem describes for us what was then believed should be the scene on that final day when young and old, heathen and Christian, saint and sinner, are called before their God to answer for their conduct in the flesh.  Hear the plea of the infants, who dying, at birth before baptism could be administered, asked to be relieved from punishment on the grounds that they have committed no sin.

    “If for our own transgression,
      or disobedience,
    We here did stand at thy left hand,
      just were the Recompense;
    But Adam’s guilt our souls hath spilt,
      his fault is charg’d upon us;
    And that alone hath overthrown and utterly
      undone us.”

Pointing out that it was Adam who ate of the tree and that they were innocent, they ask: 

    “O great Creator, why was our nature
      depraved and forlorn? 
    Why so defil’d, and made so vil’d,
      whilst we were yet unborn? 
    If it be just, and needs we must
      transgressors reckon’d be,
    Thy mercy, Lord, to us afford,
      which sinners hath set free.”