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Christmas
Edition
Mmmn $tUt frauds
Heppner, Oregon,
Thursday, Dec. 20, 1951
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"Yes, indeed!
"Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They
have been affected by the skepticism of a skep
tical agethey do not believe except what they see
-they think that nothing can be which is not corn
prehensible by their little minds.
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"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 intelli
gence capable of grasping
A&iB the w h o l e 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 high
est beauty and joy. Alas!
how dreary would be t h e
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 roman.ce to make toler
able this existence. We should have no enjoyment,
except in sense and sight. The eternal light with
which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
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t was only September, and 1897's Christmas was three
months in the future. But Virginia CHonon'i concern was 1
with an important problem that, to her, knew no season. That
was why she wrote her letter to the New York Sun.
The answer to Virginia's question, written in a moment
0 deep spiritual insight by Francis B. Church, stands even x
xoaay as a testament expressing two tnousana yean or iqiw. v
It has been reprinted here because it always will deserve to
be read again.
"Not believe in Santa Claus! You rnlgnt at
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 n o t see
Santa Gaus coming down, what would that prove?
Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that
t h e r e is no Santa
Claus-the most real
things in the world
are those 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 that art
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 or
even the united strength of all the strongest men, :
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that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy,
poetry, love, romance, can push aside the curtain
and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory
beyond. ' j
f if I
f I
w it.
"Is it all real?-ah, Virginia, in all this world
there is nothing else real and abiding.
"No Santa Claus; Thank Cod!-he lives, and
he lives forever-a thousand years from now, Vir
ginia, nay, ten thousand years from now, he will
continue to make glad the heart of childhood"
J.