inquire as to the strange mental process that could have led any human
being to believe in such a Creator. Regardless of doctrine, creed, or
theology, we cannot totally dissociate our earthly mental condition from
that in the future state; we cannot refuse to believe that we shall have
the same intelligent mind, and the same ability to understand, perceive,
and love. Apparently, however, the Puritan found no difficulty in
believing that the future existence entailed an entire change in the
principles of love and in the emotions of sympathy and pity.

"He that was erst a husband pierc'd
with sense of wife's distress,
Whose tender heart did bear a part
of all her grievances.
Shall mourn no more as heretofore,
because of her ill plight,
Although he see her now to be
a damn'd forsaken wight.

"The tender mother will own no other
of all her num'rous brood
But such as stand at Christ's right hand,
acquitted through his Blood.
The pious father had now much rather
his graceless son should lie
In hell with devils, for all his evils,
burning eternally."

(_Day of Doom._)

But we do not have to trust to Michael Wigglesworth's poem alone for a