GOOD SANTA CLAUS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1920, 28 December 1918, Page 1

GOOD SANTA CLAUS.

MORE THAN A MYTH

(By Matanga, in the Auckland Herald.)

Somebody has started a rumour that there is no such person as »Santa Claus, that he is really nothing more nor less than a myth invented by mistakenly modest parents or guardians who delight to do good by stealth. The rumour is a wicked, malicious fabrication, and if its author could be discovered he or she —could there be room for believing llml the dastard rvas ever a lady I ? —should be compelled to live in exile with the ex-Kaiser.

>)f course (here is a Santa Claus, a most delightful and bewitching personage, and, of (-nurse he comes at Christmas with a wondrous load of gifts for little hearts. Ask any well-informed child not as yet contaminated by the sad falsities of a degenerate, intidel generation. In the sweet light of childhood’s.trailing clouds of glory Santa Claus has been convincingly seen. Yes, yes! We all know that the man in shining top-boots and red dressing-gown bedecked with cot-ton-wool, who plods in ill-disguised melancholy .about the toy-shop and gives an occasional hitch to his uncleanly beard and a confessedly guilty (|uaver to his equally vagrant voice, is not Santa Chius. And we have all, sometime or other, found unmistakable evidence that father or mother has been tampering in quite good intent with the stocking of many hopes.

But those discoveries cun no more destroy u roul child’s wholesome belief in Santa Glaus than jew’s-htirps can stay the spirit of-musie, or political speeches disprove .the power of thought, or heathen idols or scientific theories bow God out of His universe. What are these all but clumsy and stammering' witness t . that whose being' they seem to deny. Nobody has seen- music or thought or God, though a painfully persistent host has rent the air with Jew’s harps and plat form outrages, and wooden images, and wooden theses have been as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Still music and thought and God persist; and Santa Clans, partaking of all three, is as real as I hoy.

He belongs of right to the kingdom of heaven, the realm of the real that you must become as a littlechild to enter. The outposts of that empire are in every child’s heart, and they remain inviolate til! trailorions -hands d\s{roy their forts.

Believe in SiuXa Clans’ Covlainly, utterly. A litlle child may gently lead you inlo Ilia( Indy faith ol' (lie centuries again lids Christ-nms-lide, and at (lie heck oi‘ the young-old distributor of love’s largesse you shall then find yourself his eager co-conspirator in blessing. His sleigh-bells may not be heard in the -warm breathings of our summer nights, and your wakeful eyes may not see him any more clearly than do the drowsy children who try to keep heroic vigil out of fond trust in his memory of them; yet will his commands be clear and compelling. Our sons and brothers in far-off Flanders, whore this patron-saint of childhood has long had his home, may not have been any more fortunate (ban you in (he twinkling silences , that briefly broke the gunlire; but, all the heller, because of your Christmas gifts to them, they may come back with a sane belief in him.

Could we but capture him to give him waiting honour, we might induce him to become President of the League of Nations lie! ween Christmas journeyings, benign old interhationalisl that he is. ITow uoljly would he keep the peace and make men blest! So here’s to Santa Clans, (he warmer of the world’s heart, thh friend of childre*n, the inspirer of parents, the counsellor of old bachelors and young lovers! May his fabulous wealth never grow less!