The Hermitage

The Hermitage in Roxburghshire has to be one of the bleakest and most sinister fortesses in the United Kingdom. Associated with murderous nobles, torture, witchcraft and the awful machinations surrounding Mary, Queen of Scots, its semi-ruinous state epitomises much of Scots and Border Reiver history. Sitting in Liddesdale, ‘the bloodiest valley in Britain’, this dark place must be a haven for ghouls and ghosts, if such creatures exist in this world. Such a building, a far cry from the lofty towers and romantic battlements of the fairytale castle or the grand palaces south of the border, is surely a picture of hell; a remote, fortified hole in which all that is evil and rebellious can concentrate and rot.

Thank God we have a Saviour who would rescue His beloved from going to such a place. But what of those who spurn His offer of sin’s forgiveness and heaven’s rest? It is no longer popular to believe in hell among 'Christians', but this does nothing to negate its reality. 

Thus it is in hell; they would die, but they cannot. The wicked shall be always dying but never dead; the smoke of the furnace ascends for ever and ever. Oh! who can endure thus to be ever upon the rack? This word "ever" breaks the heart. Wicked men do now think the Sabbaths long, and think a prayer long; but oh! how long will it be to lie in hell for ever and ever?

-Thomas Watson

The torments of hell abide for ever...If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth year a bird should come, and take away one grain of this sand, it would be a long time ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; yet, if after all that time the damned may come out of hell, there were some hope; but this word EVER breaks the heart.

-Thomas Watson