`` It was Mr. Scott who did it , '' said the Story Girl . `` He was preaching somewhere in Nova Scotia , and when he was more than half way through his sermon -- and you know sermons were VERY long in those days -- a man walked in . Mr. Scott stopped until he had taken his seat . Then he said , ` My friend , you are very late for this service . I hope you wo n't be late for heaven . The congregation will excuse me if I recapitulate the sermon for our friend 's benefit . ' And then he just preached the sermon over again from the beginning . It is said that that particular man was never known to be late for church again . '' `` It served him right , '' said Dan , `` but it was pretty hard lines on the rest of the congregation . '' `` Now , let 's be quiet so Peter can go on with his sermon , '' said Cecily . Peter squared his shoulders and took hold of the edge of the pulpit . Never a thump had he thumped , but I realized that his way of leaning forward and fixing this one or that one of his hearers with his eye was much more effective . `` I 've come now to the second head of my sermon -- what the bad place is like . '' He proceeded to describe the bad place . Later on we discovered that he had found his material in an illustrated translation of Dante 's Inferno which had once been given to his Aunt Jane as a school prize . But at the time we supposed he must be drawing from Biblical sources . Peter had been reading the Bible steadily ever since what we always referred to as `` the Judgment Sunday , '' and he was by now almost through it . None of the rest of us had ever read the Bible completely through , and we thought Peter must have found his description of the world of the lost in some portion with which we were not acquainted . Therefore , his utterances carried all the weight of inspiration , and we sat appalled before his lurid phrases . He used his own words to clothe the ideas he had found , and the result was a force and simplicity that struck home to our imaginations .
Suddenly Sara Ray sprang to her feet XXXXX a scream -- a scream that changed into strange laughter .
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