ARISTIDES.” 77

prejudice—and thus had been guilty of great
wickedness. She had done thus, in partial
ignorance of ier sin, for as I have said pre-
judice is like a spider—it creeps slily _ into
the mind, and takes possession of it unseen,
and often hangs it over with dismal cobwebs,
which are invisible to the owner of the
tenement, though plain enough to the eye of
God and man.

The Story of Aristides.

There is a story handed down to us in the
history of ancient Greece, which shows us
that prejudice may even lead ignorant and
wrong-minded people to dislike and oppose
excellence.

There was in Greece, a man named
Aristides, so celebrated for his integrity, his »
honesty, his Tove of truth and his upright-
ness, that he was called ARiIsTIDES THE
Just. Well, im consequence of a false
charge brought against him by some of his
enemies, whose unjust proceedings he had
opposed, the people of Athens were about to
banish him from the ¢ity, but before this

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