“May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.” —George Washington (1790)

Have you read the most widely republished column ever written?

Over the years, we have benefited from the wisdom and guidance of those who are among the most widely syndicated editorial writers and analysts in America. No, not Ann Landers or Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby), but William Buckley, Walter Williams, Cal Thomas, and others who were instrumental in our launch of The Patriot Post online 28 years ago.

But the question is not about the most widely syndicated columnists, but the most widely republished column.

A few years ago, syndicated columnists were surveyed on the question of the best newspaper columns ever written. The winner was Ernie Pyle’s “The Death of Captain Waskow,” written in January 1944. Pyle was World War II’s “G.I. Journalist,” and 15 months after publishing that column, he was killed while covering the Army’s 305th Infantry Regiment landing at Iejima, near Okinawa.

Notably, those columnists agreed that the second-best column ever written was a response to a letter from a child. That 1897 column was written by Francis Church and originally published in The Sun, New York’s most prominent newspaper at the time. Church’s reply is not only one of the best columns ever but, indisputably, the most republished column ever — and it’s appropriate that a timeless column about Christmas would hold this distinction.

Church wrote an answer to the eight-year-old daughter of a surgeon, Philip O'Hanlon, who asked her father, “Is there a Santa Claus?” Young Virginia O'Hanlon asked that question after her classmates insisted there was no Santa.

Dissatisfied with her father’s answer, Virginia, with her father’s encouragement, submitted the question to The Sun. The paper’s publisher gave it to Church, a popular but struggling columnist. It was an assignment completely outside the scope of his typical topics, which were mostly weighty secular responses regarding religious issues.

Though the column was about Christmas, Virginia submitted the question in the summer. Church’s 416-word response was published in September as the paper’s third (last) column for that day. As was standard practice at the time, it was printed without a byline, and Church was not disclosed as the author until after his death in 1906.

A few years ago, our occasional columnists, fine American historians David and Jeanne Heidler, posted a column, “Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Kringle Is Real!,” providing historical context for Church’s response. They noted: “The most famous editorial in the history of journalism was almost never written. When it was, it was hardly judged a timeless classic.”

But it would become just that.

Here, then, is Virginia’s question and Mr. Church’s response transcribed from the New York Sun’s original text.

According to The Sun editors: “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 readers 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 Ninety-Fifth Street.”

And Church’s response:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except 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 your life its highest beauty and glory. 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 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 may 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, not 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.

And with that, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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