He had the "lurking propensity" for verse-writing which was common among the men of his time, but instead of venting it merely in the composing of acrostics, anagrams, and epitaphs, he dedicated it to the Lord in the writing of a sort of rimed sermon on the subject of the Day of Judgment. The full title reads, "The Day of Doom or, a Description Of the Great and Last Judgment with a short discourse about Eternity. Eccles. 12. 14. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." It was printed, probably in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1662. The poem is composed of two hundred and twenty-four eight-line stanzas. After an invocation and the announcement of the day of doom, the dead come from their graves before the throne of Christ. There the "sheep" who have been chosen for salvation are placed on the right, and the wicked "goats" come in groups to hear the judge's verdict. These include hypocrites, civil, honest men, those who died in youth before they were converted, those who were misled by the example of the good, those who did not understand the Bible, those who feared martyrdom more than hell-torment, those who thought salvation was hopeless, and, finally, those who died as babes. All are sternly answered from the throne, and all are swept off to a common eternal doom except the infants, for whom is reserved "the easiest room in hell." Two facts should be remembered in criticizing "The Day of Doom" as poetry. The first is that Wigglesworth wrote it consciously as a teacher and preacher and not as a poet. In his introduction he said: Reader, I am a fool And have adventurèd To play the fool this once for Christ, The more his fame to spread. If this my foolishness Help thee to be more wise, I have attainèd what I seek, And what I only prize. The second point is that in writing a rimed sermon for Christian worshipers he had a model supplied him in the popular "Bay Psalm Book," which had appeared some twenty years before and which was familiar to all the people who were likely to be his readers. The translators of the 121st Psalm wrote, for example: 1 I to the hills lift up mine eyes, from whence shall come mine aid 2 Mine help doth from Jehovah come, which heav'n and earth hath made. And Wigglesworth took up the strain with No heart so bold, but now grows cold, and almost dead with fear; No eye so dry but now can cry, and pour out many a tear.