Yes, Virginia

All the stocking were hung by the chimney with care, hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there.....

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

Francis P. Church

Dear Editor: I am 8 years old.

Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.

Papa says "If you see it in "The Sun" it is so."

Please tell me the truth: is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exist as certain as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary it would be if there was no Santa Claus! It would be a dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith, then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable the existence. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well as not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that's no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real thing in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.

No Santa Claus! Thank God, he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

----The New York Sun, September 21, 1897. C&G Design