I think Aaron was very sorry that the people were so foolish and so wicked. But he did as the people asked him. He made them a golden calf for them to worship, and allowed them to play round it.
Just as they were shouting and dancing and feasting, Moses began to come down from talking with God.
He held in his hand two pieces or slabs of stone on which God Himself had written His Holy Law—those ten Commandments which we often hear read, and which begin with "I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, thou shalt have no other gods before ME."
Moses was carrying these two slabs of stone, and he and his servant Joshua (who I think had waited somewhere on the mountain while Moses talked with God) came down once more towards the camp. But when they had got within sight of it, they heard the sound of shouting and singing.
Then Moses looked down over the edge of the mountain, and he saw the golden calf set up, and the people worshipping it; and he was so grieved and angry that he cast down the two slabs of stone, which had been made by God, and written on by God, right out of his hand down the steep mountain side, and they were broken all to pieces!
Then Moses and Joshua hastened down, and Moses stopped the people in their worship of the golden calf. He cast it into the fire and burnt it, and was very angry with Aaron and the people.
Then he went to the Lord, and told Him all about it, confessing the great sin of the people, and asking Him to forgive it.
God is very pitiful and of tender mercy; and though He had to punish the people for their sin by sending a plague among them, yet He did forgive them, and He told Moses to lead the people forward again, and to make two fresh slabs of stone, and told him to write His law upon them over again.
How often we find in our daily lives, children, that when we mean to be very good, after all, we do not keep to what we had intended to do.
The only way is for us to ask God to write His Holy Law in our hearts every day, and to beg Him to keep us from doing what would displease Him. If we trust in our own strength we shall be sure to fail; but if we look to Him and truly seek to please Him, He will help us to become more and more like the Lord Jesus.