Yes, Virginia There Is A Santa Claus
By Francis Pharcellus Church Sept 21, 1897
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 measure by the intelligence capable of
grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists 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 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 un-seeable 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 man 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, nay, ten times
ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of
childhood.
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