Quite a few readers, especially older ones, may be familiar with some famous words entitled ‘The Gate of the Year’ written by poet Minnie Louise Haskins in 1908. It caught the popular imagination when King George VI quoted it in his 1939 Christmas broadcast. It begins: ‘I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.’