"Will you demand grace at my hand,
and challenge what is mine?
Will you teach me whom to set free,
and thus my grace confine.

"You sinners are, and such a share
as sinners may expect;
Such you shall have, for I do save
none but mine own Elect.

"Yet to compare your sin with theirs
who liv'd a longer time,
I do confess yours is much less
though every sin's a crime.

"A crime it is, therefore in bliss
you may not hope to dwell;
But unto you I shall allow
the easiest room in Hell."

Would not this cause anguish to the heart of any mother? Indeed, we
shall never know what intense anxiety the Puritan woman may have
suffered during the few days intervening between the hour of the birth
and the date of the baptism of her infant. It is not surprising,
therefore, that an exceedingly brief period was allowed to elapse before
the babe was taken from its mother's arms and carried through snow and
wind to the desolate church. Judge Sewall, whose _Diary_ covers most of
the years from 1686 to 1725, and who records every petty incident from
the cutting of his finger to the blowing off of the Governor's hat, has