Listen to a special Christmas installment of the Inspirational Living podcast. Edited and adapted from the famous Christmas editorial written by Francis Pharcellus Church.

Text: Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. My daddy told me to write and ask you. Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Sincerely Yours,
Virginia O'Hanlon

Dear 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 adult's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, we can catch only but a glimpse of the boundless world around us, only grasp but a fragment of the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion, which, as you know, are the things that give life its highest beauty and joy. Oh, how dreary would the world be 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 our existence on Earth.

We would have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus? You might as well not believe in fairies. You could get your father to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you 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 adults can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Probably 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 can 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, 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 that is not so. Santa Claus lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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