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 describes for us what was then believed should be the scene on that final day when young and old, heathen and Christian, saint and sinner, are called before their God to answer for their conduct in the flesh. Hear the plea of the infants, who dying, at birth before baptism could be administered, 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."
"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: