Christmas will remain engraven on the memory of many British soldiers who were in our trenches here as one of the most extraordinary days of their lives.

For on that day British and Germans ceased fighting with each other for an interval, came out into the open between their respective firing lines, buried their dead, and held a short service in their memory.

Our chaplain had come with the colonel to officiate at the funeral in our trench of one of our Scottish soldiers. During the progress of the solemn rites it was noticed that one or two fellows were standing outside. No attention was paid to this till the service ended, when the colonel shouted: "Come inside, men!" The reply was that some Germans were standing outside theirs. Gradually more and more of the enemy - some of them officers by their uniform - appeared, none of them armed.

FOOTBALL MATCH WITH A HARE.

At last our commanding officer resolved to get out and see for himself. The chaplain jumped up into the open at his heels, and crossing a ditch which runs down the middle of the field between the lines cried: "Does anyone speak English?" As reply a private stepped forward, and then to our amazement we saw our chaplain cross the ditch, salute the German commander and his staff, and begin to talk with them. Almost at the same time a hare burst into view and ran along between the trenches. All at once Germans came scurrying from their trenches and British from theirs, and a marvellous thing happened. It was all like a football match, the hare being the football, the grey tunicked Germans the one side, and the kilted "Jocks" the other. The game was won by the Germans, who captured the prize. But more was secured than a hare - a sudden friendship had been struck up, the truce of God had been called, and for the rest of Christmas Day not a shot was fired along our section.

Dotted over the sixty yards separating our trenches were scores and scores of dead soldiers, and soon spades were flung up by comrades on guard in both trenches, and by instinct each side set to dig graves for their dead. Our padre had seized his chance and found the German commander very ready to agree that after the dead had been buried a short service should take place. He told us that the German commander and his officers were as anxious as the British could be to keep

Christmas Day as a day of peace, that was quite in keeping with the behaviour of the Germans, who had kept up only an occasional firing on Christmas Eve, and were very busy singing carols and glees.

SOUVENIRS EXCHANGED.

We did not know all that was being said, but afterwards we asked the padre two questions. The one was, "Why did you and the German commander take off your hats to one another?" What happened, as we learned was:

The German took his cigar case out and offered the padre a cigar, which was accepted. The padre said: "May I be allowed not to smoke, but to keep this as a souvenir of Christmas here and of meeting you on Christmas Day?" The answer, with a laugh, was: "Oh, yes, but can't you give me a souvenir?" Then the hats came off. For the souvenir the padre gave was the copy of "The Soldier's Prayer" which he had carried in the lining of his cap since the war began, and the German officer, in accepting it, took off his cap and put the slip in its lining, saying as he did it: "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."The second question was, "What was in the notebook the German commander showed you?" The answer was that he had been shown the name and address in England of a certain brave British officer. He had been killed, and as he was dying the commander happened to pass and saw him struggling to get something out of his pocket. He went up and helped the dying officer, and the thing in the pocket was a photograph of his wife. The commander said, "I held it before him, and he lay there looking at it till he died a few minutes after." Our padre took down the name and address and has been able to pass on the information to the bereaved home.

FINE SPIRIT OF RESPECT.

The whole German staff showed a fine spirit of respect during the service for the dead. On one side of the ditch half way between the two lines stood German officers with their soldiers about them; on the other the officers of the British regiments in the section with their soldiers about them, and between was our chaplain as interpreter, and a German divinity student serving with their army. Our chaplain read the 23rd Psalm in English, the German student reading it after him in German. Then a short prayer which the chaplain had written on a postcard and the interpreter had turned into German was read, sentence by sentence, by the student after the English form had been recited.

It was a memorable sight to see officers and men who had been fighting and as I write are fighting against one another as fiercely as ever, bareheaded, reverent, and keeping sacred truce as they did homage to the memory of the dead on Christmas Day, 1914.