"There had been a Revival man, here," George explained to me, "and
he was preaching on hell. As it grew dark a candle was lighted, and
I can still see his face as in a picture, a hard-visaged man. He
looked down at us laddies in the front, and asked us if we knew what
like hell was. By this time we were that terrified none of us could
speak, but I whispered 'No.'

"Then he rolled up a piece of paper and held it in the flame, and we
saw it burn and glow and shrivel up and fall in black dust.

"'Think,' said he, and he leaned over the desk, and spoke in a
gruesome whisper which made the cold run down our backs, 'that yon
paper was your finger, one finger only of your hand, and it burned
like that for ever and ever, and think of your hand and your arm and
your whole body all on fire, never to go out.' We shuddered that you
might have heard the form creak. 'That is hell, and that is where
ony laddie will go who does not repent and believe.'

"It was like Dante's Inferno, and I dared not take my eyes off his
face. He blew out the candle, and we crept to the door trembling,
not able to say one word.

"That night I could not sleep, for I thought I might be in the fire
before morning. It was harvest time, and the moon was filling the
room with cold clear light. From my bed I could see the stooks
standing in rows upon the field, and it seemed like the judgment
day.

"I was only a wee laddie, and I did what we all do in trouble, I
cried for my mother.