Steamboat Pilot & Today continues its Christmas tradition of reprinting one of the most famous newspaper editorials of all time, “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.”

The editorial was written by veteran newsman Francis Church for the New York Sun in 1897 in response to a letter to the editor submitted by 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon, who wrote, “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, 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.

Read more at Steamboat Today.