
My fourth Christmastide reflection on that beautiful carol, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, focusses upon its second verse’s last two lines:
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave.

My fourth Christmastide reflection on that beautiful carol, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, focusses upon its second verse’s last two lines:
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave.

St Peter’s Church in the middle of Hereford claims to be the oldest parish church in the city. Despite its age and collection of historical styles and features, its nave is populated by grey, plastic chairs and banners of a decidedly evangelical or charismatic provenance.

My third Christmastide reflection on that beautiful carol, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, focusses upon its second verse’s first two lines:
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny
Rod of Jesse is a strange expression, and originates in the mysterious writings of Isaiah the prophet:

My second Christmastide reflection on that beautiful carol, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, focusses upon its third and fourth lines:
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.

Sir Walter Scott based his 1831 Castle Dangerous on Douglas Castle, Lanarkshire. Once the fortified home of the powerful Earls of Douglas and then a seventeenth and eighteenth-century mansion. Coal mining in the 1930s damaged the foundations and it was demolished before the end of that decade, this forlorn tower its only surviving monument.