In 1939, the British people were facing the possibility and uncertainty of war. The Kings Christmas broadcast, looking ahead into the dark days of 1940, provided a word of hope. It is a word that we need today:
I said to a 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 a light and safer than a known way. So I went forth, and finding the hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
Note: the works are from Louise Haskins The Gate of the Year. The poem had been published in 1908 and came to the King Georges attention through a Christmas card. The words were also included at the close of the 1940 film, The Mortal Storm