Christmas Peace During War
Spencer W. Kimball
One Christmas during the World War, when no-man's-land between the trenches was white with snow, the troops in a certain "quiet sector" began to exchange holiday greetings by means of crudely painted signs. A few minutes later, men who spoke German and men who spoke English were climbing from their trenches without guns and meeting on neutral ground to shake hands and exchange souvenirs, unmindful of war. No venom, no meanness, no poisonous hatred between these men at war. Friends they were, not enemies, this Christmas Day. For the moment, blessed forgetfulness erased from their memory the masters who drove them into bloody conflict....
Rather on the Lord's birthday they saw [one another] as fellowmen, men with homes they built, loved children who played about their knees, men who followed the same risen Lord and Master but who were tricked by the warlords and converted by leaders and propagandists that they should fight and kill. They understood each other now and liked each other.
It is ignorance that makes wars and most other differences possible. People believe the opposition capable of atrocious things, because they do not realize that human nature is very much alike, wherever you find it.
(From a talk given in 1934; quoted in The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 419)
