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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."

      But the Creator answers:

      "God doth such doom forbid,

       That men should die eternally

       for what they never did.

       But what you call old Adam's fall,

       and only his trespass,

       You call amiss to call it his,

       both his and yours it was."

      The Judge then inquires why, since they would have received the pleasures and joys which Adam could have given them, the rewards and blessings, should they hesitate to share his "treason."

      "Since then to share in his welfare,

       you could have been content,

       You may with reason share in his treason,

       and in the punishment,

       Hence you were born in state forlorn,

       with natures so depraved

       Death was your due because that you

       had thus yourselves behaved.

      "Had you been made in Adam's stead,

       you would like things have wrought,

       And so into the self-same woe

       yourselves and yours have brought."

      Then follows a reprimand upon the part of the judge because they should presume to question His judgments, and to ask for mercy:

      "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 left us these notes on the baptism of some of his fourteen children:

      "April 8, 1677. Elizabeth Weeden, the Midwife, brought the infant to the third Church when Sermon was about half done in the afternoon … I named him John." (Five days after birth.)[3] "Sabbath-day, December 13th 1685. Mr. Willard baptizeth my Son lately born, whom I named Henry." (Four days after birth.)[4] "February 6, 1686–7. Between 3 and 4 P.m. Mr. Willard baptized my Son, whom I named Stephen." (Five days after birth.)[5]

      Little wonder that infant mortality was exceedingly high, especially when the baptismal service took place on a day as cold as this one mentioned by Sewall: "Sabbath, Janr. 24 … This day so cold that the Sacramental Bread is frozen pretty hard, and rattles sadly as broken into the Plates."[6] We may take it for granted that the water in the font was rapidly freezing, if not entirely frozen, and doubtless the babe, shrinking under the icy touch, felt inclined to give up the struggle for existence, and decline a further reception into so cold and forbidding a world. Once more hear a description by the kindly, but abnormally orthodox old Judge: "Lord's Day, Jany 15, 1715–16. An extraordinary Cold Storm of Wind and Snow. … Bread was frozen at the Lord's Table: Though 'twas so Cold, yet John Tuckerman was baptised. At six a-clock my ink freezes so that I can hardly write by a good fire in my Wive's Chamber. Yet was very Comfortable at Meeting. Laus Deo."[7]

      But let us pass to other phases of this theology under which the Puritan woman lived. The God pictured in the Day of Doom not only was of a cruel and angry nature but was arbitrary beyond modern belief. His wrath fell according to his caprice upon sinner or saint. We are tempted to 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 realistic conception of the God and the religion of the Puritans. It is in the sermons of the day that we discover a still more unbending, harsh, and hideous view of the Creator and his characteristics. In the thunderings of Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards, we, like the colonial women who sat so meekly in the high, hard benches, may fairly smell the brimstone of the Nether World. Why, exclaims Jonathan Edwards in his sermon, The Eternity of Hell Torments:

      "Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme torment forever and ever; to

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