"3. Because there they that us away
led in captivitee,
Requir'd of us a song, & thus
askt mirth: us waste who laid,
sing us among a Sion's song,
unto us then they said."

MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH (1631-1705).--This Harvard graduate and Puritan
preacher published in 1662 a poem setting forth some of the tenets of
Calvinistic theology. This poem, entitled _The Day of Doom, or a Poetical
Description of the Great and Last Judgment_, had the largest circulation of
any colonial poem. The following lines represent a throng of infants at the
left hand of the final Judge, pleading against the sentence of infant
damnation:--

"'Not we, but he ate of the tree,
whose fruit was interdicted;
Yet on us all of his sad fall
the punishment's inflicted.
How could we sin that had not been,
or how is his sin our,
Without consent, which to prevent
we never had the pow'r?'"

Wigglesworth represents the Almighty as replying:--

"'You sinners are, and such a share
as sinners may expect;
Such you shall have, for I do save