Everybody feels the need of encouragement, from the humblest artisan to the king on his throne.  We hear of the choice spirits who have been the world’s idols, how they came up through terrible trials alone and almost unaided, setting aside obstacles that would have crushed others, and fighting their way to the very pinnacle of fame.  Aye! but great as they were, they needed and received encouragement.  In some part of their poor home they saw the smile that spoke the hearty appreciation of the genius, though, perhaps, the lips said nothing.  Even West left on record, “my mother’s smile made me a painter.”  The encouragement of a little child will send the blood more warmly to the heart, and even the appreciation of a poor dumb brute is worth its gaining.  Give encouragement.  Everybody needs it—­men, women and even children.  Oh! how many a dear little heart has been chilled into ice when the coarse laugh has greeted its rude hieroglyphics in the first attempt to portray its ideal.  The child sees warm visions of sunlight and beauty in those uncouth angles.  Whole minds of thought lie concealed under those strange shapes.  To the young mind’s eye they are wonders, and the tiny fingers have built monuments that deserve not to be thrown down so rudely, when a smile that costs nothing would have left them standing to be finished into finer shape and more classical proportions in the years that are to come.  You do a positive injury to the dullest child when you reward his little efforts with contempt.  It is a wrong that can never be repaired, for the disheartment that strikes the happy spirit, flushed with the consciousness of having achieved something new and great, comes up in after time with the very same vividness at every trivial disappointment.  Give encouragement.  You men of business, who know so well what a good, hearty “go ahead,” coupled with a frank, merry face, will do in your own case—­give encouragement to the young beginner, who starts nervously at the bottom of the race, and who, though he may put a bold outside on, quakes at the center of his being with the dread that among so many competitors he shall always be left in the rear.  Hold out your hand to him as if you thought the world was really large enough for two, and bid him God-speed.  Tell him to come to you if he feels the need of a friend to advise with him.  Don’t emulate your sign in overshadowing him.  Out upon these mean, cringing souls who would grudge God’s sunlight if it shone upon a piece of merchandise as good as their own.  They are poor, barren wretches, who plow furrows only in their own cheeks, and plant wrinkles on their brows.  Above all things, if you have any tenderness or compassion, encourage your pastor, your physician, and your editor.  Suppose, once in a while, they do, in expressing their own honest views, say something that conflicts a little with your own starved or plethoric notions.  Suppose they do dare to tell you the truth sometimes in a way that makes you cringe, and you say to yourself, “he has no business to be personal,” when the poor man never thought that his homely coats would fit; don’t grow cold, and cast sheep’s eyes, and nudge somebody’s elbow in a corner, and whisper all around, and say complacently, “Yes, Brother A. is a good man—­but—­”