Plot

A group of young mice is in the ruins of a church, practicing singing for an upcoming service. After singing an adulterated version of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," the mice wonder about the last line, "Good will to men." One of them asks the chorus master, an old mouse, "What are men?" The old mouse explains that they all killed each other off by building bigger and more destructive weapons, first guns, then missiles, then bombs.—David Glagovsky <dglagovsky@prodigy.net>

In the ruins of a church, a group of mice are rehearsing for a Christmas Eve service, as they sing the song "Hark The Herald Angel Sing" which includes the line "Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men", the younger mice than ask the choirmaster what "men" are. The old mouse choirmaster explains to his younger pupils that men are creatures that no longer exist, but he does remember them, the younger mice ask what happened to them. The old mouse tells the younger mice, that men were horrible, violent, monster-like creatures (depicted as soldiers wearing helmets and gas masks carrying guns) who did nothing but fight. Through flashbacks, the old mouse explains that the fighting between them only got worse becoming more senseless and destructive as time went on, with the fighting moving from land with guns, bazookas, missiles, and cannons to the sky with airplanes dropping bombs, until one day two nuclear bombs were each dropped by two opposing sides on different cities, the two nuclear clouds combined into one and wiped out the entire human race on Earth. The old mouse than says that after all the humans were gone and the world was in ruins, that he and the other animals found a copy of the Bible among the ruins of the church and decided to live by its teachings including "Thou Shalt Not Kill". As the old mouse finishes his story, the members of the congregation start to arrive for the service as the mice begin to sing the Christmas carol and remember to be thankful for peace on Earth.