An Extract from The New York Sun on September 21st, 1897 who published an editorial" is there a Santa Clause? "

Virginia O'Hanlon (8) had written to the Editor and asked if the famous old man really existed, for her father told her that if she read it in a newspaper it must be so.

Leader writer Francis Pharcellus Church was given the job of answering Virginia.  Having attacked scepticism, Francis Pharcellus wrote.

"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 existence.  We would 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 watch 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 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, 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 Clause!  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.