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