e call God. Now and then, amidst their fiercest
fighting, this becomes plain. It sometimes seems as if the main concern
of rulers were to prevent any permanent realisation of this truth; for
if the peoples should realise their oneness, war would cease, and there
is nothing that stops awkward questions as war does. Yet some day these
awkward questions will be asked again, I hope, and Hans and Jack and
Francois and Ivan may come to realise their brotherhood. Let us remind
ourselves how now and then they can realise this even in war. "Who will
not recall in this connection," writes Prince Eugene Troubetzky in the
_Hibbert_ (July, 1915), "the touching description of the Christmas
festival in the trenches, when the Germans, hearing the English singing
their hymns, went out to meet them and heartily shook their enemies by
the hand? Similar scenes have occurred more than once between the
Russians and the Germans. At the present moment there lies before me the
letter of a Russian soldier which refers to them: 'What I am going to
tell you,' he says, 'is a true miracle.' The 'miracle' which had so
appealed to his imagination was that, during an armistice, there were
'handshakes and hearty acclamations on both sides, to which no
description could do justice.' ... From the very heart of war there
issues this mighty protest of life against the destructive force of
death. But whenever life asserts itself, its object is always to
re-establish a living unity. The more violently unity is threatened by
war, or by the mutual hate which would tear it asunder, the more
powerful becomes the answer of this spiritual force in its effort to
re-establish the integrity of mankind. In this we have the explanation
of a fact, which at first sight seems incredible, that in time of war
the perception of the universal solidarity of mankind reaches a degree
of elevation which would hardly be possible in time of peace."

"On Christmas Eve," writes a member of the London Rifle Brigade, "the
Germans burned coloured lights and candles along the top of their
trenches, and on Christmas Day a football match was played between them
and us in front of the trench. They even allowed us to bury all our dead
lying in front, and some of them, with hats in hand, brought in some of
our dead officers from behind their trench, so that we could bury them
decently. They were really magnificent in the whole thing, and jolly
good sorts. I have now a very different opinion of