Posted on 12/24/2004 11:07:29 PM PST by Old Sarge
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of "The Sun":
Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says "If you see it in "The Sun" it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon 115 West 95th Street
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 measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole 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 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 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 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, 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 Claus! 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.
F.P. Church
New York Sun, September 21, 1897
While an editor at The New York Sun newspaper, Francis Church was handed a letter on September 20, 1897, and asked to write a response for the next day's edition. His editorial reply has become legendary.
Francis Church's father, Pharcellus, was a Baptist minister and journalist who founded The New York Chronicle.
Francis was a war correspondent for The New York Times during the Civil War. After the war, he and his brother established The Army and Navy Journal and Galaxy Magazine. When Galaxy merged with Atlantic Monthly, Francis became an editorial writer for The New York Sun.
It wasn't until after his death in 1906 that it became publicly known that Francis Church had written the editorial reply to Virginia O'Hanlon's 1897 letter.
Eight year old Virginia O'Hanlon lived on the Upper West Side of New York City and firmly believed in Santa Claus. However, some of her less fortunate young friends said there wasn't any Santa Claus and began to put doubt in her mind.
Virginia asked her father, Philip, a doctor who worked for the New York Police Department, if Santa Claus was real.
In the past, the O'Hanlon family had written to the "Question and Answer" column in The Sun to settle matters of fact. Philip recommended his daughter write to their favorite newspaper seeking an answer to one of the most famous questions of all time.
Having her faith restored, Virginia went on to graduate from Hunter College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1910 and received her Master's degrees from Columbia in 1911. In 1912, she began a 47-year career as a teacher in New York City and later became a principal. Virginia died on May 13, 1971, at the age of 81.
Actually, it is not so innocuous.
Jesus is the reason for the Season, not Santa.
We should be teaching people and our kids especially, that the reason for the season, and our giving, is because God gave us an unspeakable gift through His Son.
Waiting for Santa to judge us lessens our trust in God judging us.
Kids need to learn to behave because God wants them to, not because of some mythical figure with the powers of a god.
If you saw my 24 year old drunken drug addicted spike faced dreadlocked nephew defend his (past) wearing of an Ozzy t-shirt covered with Ozzy flipping the bird as free speech when his high school ordered him to take it off the other night, you would understand completely.
I am still not over it.
Courageous post, Race. Some of us get the message. Thank you so much.
25 Jesus answered them, "I have told you, yet you will not believe. The works that I do in My Father's name bear witness for Me. 26 But, as for you, you do not believe because you are not My sheep, as I have told you. 27 My sheep listen to My voice and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them everlasting life. They shall never, never die, nor shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father who gave them to Me is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of My Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are One!"Do you live in Middletown ? I'm in E. Hampton.
Well, I disagree.
Jesus is the reason for the Season, not Santa.
Absolutely. But, the Christmas tree is not the reason for the season. Niether is eggnog, presents, tinsel, or turkey, and most of us partake of those heartily with no inconsistency with the true Christmas message--that God sent His only Son to earth to live and die to save us from our sins so that we may be righteous in God's sight.
We should be teaching people and our kids especially, that the reason for the season, and our giving, is because God gave us an unspeakable gift through His Son.
We Christians do. My daughter, now 13, grew up with Santa (I even put on the outfit once and was Santa one year), but she has always been taught that we give gifts as a reminder of God's most precious Gift, His Son. She is now a leader among her youth in church and is developing into a mighty young woman of God. It's amazing to see how much she loves Jesus and how the youth pastors look to her as a leader for those in her age group. She even has a prayer minstry in the youth group.
Waiting for Santa to judge us lessens our trust in God judging us.
I respectfully disagree. But, I stopped believeing in Santa at age 7.
Kids need to learn to behave because God wants them to, not because of some mythical figure with the powers of a god.
Without question. But, they also need to learn to behave because we, as parents, want them too. That does not place us in God's place of judgement any more than Santa's "naughty or nice" list does.
If you saw my 24 year old drunken drug addicted spike faced dreadlocked nephew defend his (past) wearing of an Ozzy t-shirt covered with Ozzy flipping the bird as free speech when his high school ordered him to take it off the other night, you would understand completely.
I was once a 24 year old drunken drug addicted spike faced long-haired drug pushing dopehead whose only purpose in life was to get wasted and buy more dope. A year later, Jesus Christ set me free and radically changed my life. I pray God will do the same for your nephew. Con Dios, todo es possible.
I admire your stand for righteousness, Race. And I also admire your excellent taste in cartoons (Quest was, by far, my favorite). Have a blessed and very Merry Christmas!
There has not been another to explain it as well. Oh for the days when journalism was an art, practiced by fine wordsmiths.
thank you
Santa Claus ~ Bump!
Thanks Highwheeler! I didn't know "the rest of the story". Amazing how that works.
Yesterday and today, I was reminded that Santa is quite real - in the form of his FReeper helpers who made Christmas a bit merrier for my stranded family.
There's a gulf of difference between righteous, and self-righteous. Please, for your own sake, dont' do it. It's too easy.
1897.....freedom of Journalism in a Free (None PC ACLU) Press,....Thanks!
May God bless each of you throughout the year.
Oh, it's a black oak. We add ornaments to a live tree each year. This year we added pigs rooting for acorns (we just got wild hogs on the land) and appropriate leaves, along with our promise to care for it (you'll note the climber with his saw and the acorns).
We'll plant it tomorrow.
Wow, what three pretty sisters! Nice bunch of people!
And the best of the day backacha!
Of all the things in this wicked world to concern yourself with!
Yes, the legend, in a gentle and loving way, exposes our children to the concepts of everything you have cited ....OMNISCIENCE, OMNIPOTENCE, OMNIPRESENCE, FAITHFULNESS, ETERNITY, and all the rest!
I would no more have deprived my 6 children, 7 stepchildren and 17 grandchildren of the Santa myth than I would have exposed them, in their very early years, to the finest movie of my lifetime, Gibson's "Passion of the Christ".
With all my heart, I wish you a joyful, faith filled, merry Christmas.
Our local paper printed that in it's issue just before Christmas.
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