"many times hath satan troubled me concerning the verity of the scriptures, many times by atheism, how i could know whether there was a god; i never saw any miracles to confirm me, and those which i read of how did i know but they were feigned. that there is a god my reason would soon tell me by the wondrous workes that i see, the vast frame of the heaven and the earth, the order of all things, night and day, summer and winter, spring and autumne, the dayly providing for this great houshold upon the earth, the preserving and directing of all to its proper end. the consideration of these things would with amazement certainly resolve me that there is an eternall being."

[to my dear children - an electronic edition, anne bradstreet 1612-1672; original source: the works of anne bradstreet in prose and verse. edited by john harvard ellis. (charlestown: a. e. cutter, 1867)]

a) the subject of the passage
b) the author's purpose for writing
c) the intended audience
d) the tone of the piece, and
e) the perspective or point of view.