so strongly confirmed by faith
and hope that nothing can discourage it or make it let go. It is a
bulwark against the faults which sink below the normal line of life,
dullness, depression, timidity, procrastination, sloth and sadness,
moodiness, unsociability--all these it tends to dispel, by its quiet
and confident gift of encouragement. And though so contrary to the
spirit of childhood, these faults are found in children--often in
delicate children who have lost confidence in themselves from being
habitually outdone by stronger brothers and sisters, or in slow minds
which seem "stupid" to others and to themselves, or in natures too
sensitive to risk themselves in the melee. To these, one who brings
the gift of encouragement comes as a deliverer and often changes the
course of their life, leading them to believe in themselves and their
own good endowments, making them taste success which rouses them to
better efforts, giving them the strong comfort of knowing that
something is expected of them, and that if they will only try, in one
way if not in another, they need not be behind the best. At some
stage in life, and especially in the years of rapid growth, we all
need encouragement, and often characters that seem to require only
repression are merely singing out of tune from the effort to hold out
against blank discouragement at their failures to "be good," or to
divert their mind forcibly from their fits of depression. To be
scolded accentuates their trouble and tends to harden them; to grow
a shell of hardness seems for the moment their only defence; but if
some one will meet their efforts half-way, believing in them with a
tranquil conviction that they will live through these difficulties and
_find themselves_ in due time, they can be saved from much unhappiness
of their own making, though not of their own fault, and their growth
will not be arrested behind an unnatural shell of defence.

The strong vitality and gift of encouragement which can give this
help are also of value in saving from the morbid and exaggerated
friendships which sometimes spoil the best years of a girl's
education. If the character of those who teach them has force enough
not only to inspire admiration but to call out effort, it may rouse
the mind and will to a higher plane and make the things of which it
disapproves seem worthless. There are moments when the leading mind
must have strength enough for two, but this must not last. Its glory
is