The Day of Doom

A century ago no poetry was more popular in New England than Wigglesworth’s Day of Doom . Francis Jenks, Esq., in an article in the Christian Examiner for Nov., 1828, speaks of it as “a work which was taught our fathers with their catechisms, and which many an aged person with whom we are acquainted can still repeat, though they may not have met with a copy since they were in leading strings; a work that was hawked about the country, printed on sheets like common ballads; and, in fine, a work which fairly represents the prevailing theology of New England at the time it was written, and which Mather thought might, ‘perhaps, find our children till the Day itself arrives.’”