But to return to our story:
Many years after the time we are now speaking of, when King Solomon finished his magnificent temple, in Jerusalem, he ordered the ark to be opened. How he dared to disobey the priests, I cannot tell, but kings enjoy special privileges, and perhaps, he had never heard that there was a prohibition against even touching the ark. When the ark was opened, lo! and behold! the Book of the Law which Moses had commanded to be put inside the ark was not there.
It was not there!
In 2nd Kings, eighth chapter, ninth verse, we read that when they opened the ark:
"There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone."
In other words, the book which we read about in the former quotation from the Bible, and which contained most valuable divine instructions to the people, had disappeared. The ark contained only two stones, which too, in due time, went the way of the book, and no one knows where they are at the present time. Ark and stones and book, as they are nowhere to be found, there is a bare possibility that they have returned to heaven whence they came.
But let us follow the story: The book was not in the ark.
What fate had befallen it? Was it never put there? When Uzzah, and the five thousand and seventy men were killed for touching the ark, was it empty? Solomon had the lid of the chest removed, and he found therein no "Book of the Law," which was ordered to be placed there "as a witness."
Then followed a stretch of centuries in which the Book of the Law is not heard of. Oblivion now began to spread its dusty wings upon the memory of it. Yet, suggests Saladin, the old world jogged along as usual; the sun rose and set; the moon, as ever before shed its romantic light upon sea and shore. Lovers paired, and children, like a flock of swallows, visited our earth. They toiled, grew old and died—without any Book of the Law.
There is a third chapter in the biography of the Bible. Three hundred and fifty years after Solomon had fallen asleep with his fathers, one morning,—I cannot tell whether it was on a fair or on a foul day, Hilkiah,—remember that name,—Hilkiah! the high priest, knocked on the door of Shaphan, King Josiah's private secretary, and begged for a private interview,—a tete-a-tete, as the French would say. Leaning over, he whispered in the ears of the King's minister, slowly and solemnly, as one who is burdened with some compelling news,—that—he—had—just—found—"The Book of the Law" which had been lost for three hundred and fifty years!