Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 3 · column 1 of 2 · from the scan, no model involved
One December day in 1897, Virginia O’Hanlon wrote to the New York Sun: “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? The answer to Virginia O’Hanlon’s question, written in a moment of deep spiritual insight by Francis B. Church, stands even today as a testament reflecting two thousand years of faith. It has been reprinted here because it always will deserve to be read again. “Yes, indeed! “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 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.
71.9%