“Yes, indeed!
“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 to 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 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 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 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, or even the united strength of all the strong­est men, that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside the cur­tain and view and picture the super­nal beauty of all 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 thousand years from now he will con­tinue to make glad the hearts of child­hood.”
— Francis B. Church, The New York Sun