On Christmas morning some of the Germans astonished the Gordons by appearing on the top of their trenches, but the Gordons did not fire on them, and instead an officer went out to suggest that, as they had a "Padre" with them, and there were also several German dead, they should have a truce for a burial service. It was arranged, and the Germans lined up on one side of the chaplain and the Gordons on the other. The service began with the hymn "The Lord is my Shepherd," and then the "Padre" prayed. After the burial of the dead, of whom there were about a hundred, Mr. Adams gave an address, which was interpreted sentence by sentence by an interpreter sent forward by a German officer.

The service over, the German officer shook hands with Mr. Adams and offered him a cigar. Mr. Adams begged leave not to smoke it, but to keep it as a souvenir of that unique occasion. The officer consented, but said he should like some little memento in return. Hardly knowing what to give, Mr. Adams took off his cap and gave the officer the Soldier's Prayer he had carried in its lining since the war began. The German officer read it, put it in the lining of his helmet, saying, "I value this because I believe what it says, and when the war is over I shall take it out and give it as a keepsake to my youngest child."

Then the men gathered together, exchanged keepsakes, and spent their Christmas in perfect unity. Not a shot was fired that day, nor on the next. It seemed as though each side was reluctant to fire again, after the sacred service of Christmas morning.

During a brief visit home Mr. Adams occupied the pulpit of his own church—the West U.F. Church, Aberdeen. In the course of a sermon full of interest he referred to his strange service on the battle-field. The Aberdeen Daily Journal thus reports what he said:

"There had been some weird stories told about Christmas Day. He was not going to deny these stories. He was not even going to deny the cigar incident, but was going to show the cigar. Christmas Day made him understand something of the size of God. The day ended for him with the vision of a great German regiment standing behind their commanding officer bareheaded, and not so far distant as one gallery from the other of that church, British officers with their soldiers bareheaded, and between them a man reading the Twenty-third Psalm. In the name of the One Christ, these two foes, the most awful the world had ever seen, held Christmas. It was the fear of God—the need of God—that did it all."

I have told the story in the simplest language, without any attempt to give it colouring, because it seems to me it speaks for itself. It tells that deep down beneath the uniform, beneath all that makes man true Briton or true German, there is the bond of brotherhood. They were Scotchmen, these Gordons, and I wonder if they thought of the lines of their Scottish poet:

Man to man the warld o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that.

Is it not a grim tragedy that men who can thus fraternise on Christmas Day should a few hours after be sending each other to their death? We look forward to the day, and pray God it may not be far distant, when war shall cease.

Here at home and there on the battle-field, Christian men unite in the prayer:

Not on this land alone,
But be God's mercies known
From shore to shore:
And may the nations see
That men should brothers be,
And form one family
The wide world o'er.