Prejudice, or, the Little Push.
By E. GOODRICH
PREJUDICE seems quite a monster, with varied heads and horns, and changeable colors, ready at all times either to push, or to allure us from the path of duty. In quite an early day, there lived in the interior of New York State, a man having a large family of boys, nearly men grown; and having but a small farm of well-improved land, he resolved to sell out his small farm, and go away out West, as far as the Ohio Reserve, or the White Pigeon, where land was cheap, and where his boys could buy them land and settle together around him. And having sold his farm, and what he could not carry, the remainder was loaded into an ox wagon, and started for the great West. But it was the spring of the year, the roads were rutty and muddy, and it was several weeks before they arrived, with a jaded team, and tired bodies, upon the shore of Lake Erie where the present very beautiful city of Erie now stands. The season was fast advancing, and while they stopped a week or two to rest themselves and team, and to wait for the roads to become a little better, a controversy arose between the boys whether they should continue their present course or turn at right angles and find them homes in the nicely wooded valleys of French Creek. The more they talked and tried to settle the dispute, the more determined each party became, until it was finally agreed to decide the question by setting up a cane, and the way the cane fell should be the way that all would go. But here was a point. Who should set up the cane. This was determined by tossing up the cane as at ball-playing for the ins. The lot fell to one of the party who wished to settle in Northern Pennsylvania. And accordingly he placed the cane in an upright position on the ground, and when all parties interested were agreed that the cane was perpendicular, he took his finger from the top of the cane, and sure enough, it fell directly south, and the entire family followed. But the man who set up the cane, said as he ended the story forty years after the event, As I took my finger from the end of the cane, I gave it just a little push, and it fell the very way I wanted it to. This appears to be a fitting illustration of prejudice, it only needs “the little push” to throw us entirely out of the way of truth, humanity, and justice. We are prejudiced by our feelings, by our interests, and by forming an opinion in advance of the facts that ought to be taken as evidence in the case. There are a thousand ways in which the mind is prejudiced against men, things, and doctrines that we ought to believe, and practice, and perhaps there is no one entirely free in this matter, yet, so far as we can, we ought carefully to guard against “the little push.” E. GOODRICH.