In reply to Virginia's question, Francis P. Church wrote an editorial which pleased so many
readers that the Sun printed it every year during the Christmas season, from
1897 to 1949. The letter and editorial, from Sept. 21, 1897 follow:


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 little. In
this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect,
as 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 exists as certainly 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 would be the world if
there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no
Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to
make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense
and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be
extinguished.


Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well 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, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming
down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign
that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those
that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on
the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody
can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in
the world.


You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but
there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor
even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could
tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that
curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond. Is it
all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and
abiding.


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.