Is Santa Real OT

[Guest guest]

More than 100 years ago, a young girl named Virginia O'Hanlon sent a letter

to the New York Sun asking whether there was a real Santa Claus. In 1897,

shortly before Christmas, a tired veteran editor named Frank P. Church sat down

to write his last editorial of the day, in response to O'Hanlon's question.

 

 

Here is Church's ageless editorial:

 

 

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below,

expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is

numbered among the friends of The Sun:

 

 

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's so. " Please tell me the truth,

is there a Santa Claus?

 

 

Virginia O'Hanlon,

 

 

115 West 95th St.

 

 

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the

skepticism of a skeptical age.

 

 

They do not believe except what 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 childlike 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 may 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 supernal 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.

 

 

Graham Sorenson

 

http://TheGuideToAromatherapy.com