“Now we will read about one who made a sorry mistake by being so careful that he forgot to find out God’s way of doing a certain thing. He did the thing that he wanted to do after a style of his own.”
Tessa arose and went into Miss Jewett’s bedroom; she knew that the Bible she loved best, the one pencilled and interlined, was always kept on a stand near the head of her bed. While Miss Jewett was opening it, Tessa said hurriedly and earnestly “I knew that if it were anywhere in the Bible—that if any one in the world had suffered like me—that you would know where to find them. You said last Sunday that God had written something to help us in every perplexity; but I studied and studied and could not find any thing about second opportunities. Perhaps mine is only a foolish little trouble; not a grand one like David’s.”
“Do you think that God likes to hear you say that?”
“No,” confessed Tessa. “I will not even think it again.”
“Have you forgotten how David attempted to bring the Ark into the city of David, and how he failed? What a mortifying and distressing failure it was, too. Now I’ll read it to you.”
One of Tessa’s pleasures was to listen to her reading the Bible; she read as if David lived across the Park, and as if the city of David were not a mile away.
Tessa kept her head in its old position and listened with intent and longing eyes.
“‘And David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds and every leader. And David said unto all the congregation of Israel, If it seem good unto you, and that it be of the Lord our God, let us send abroad unto our brethren everywhere, that are left in all the land of Israel, and with them also to the priests and Levites which are in their cities and suburbs, that they may gather themselves together unto us: and let us bring again the Ark of our God to us: for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul. And all the congregation said that they would do so: for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people. So David gathered all Israel together from Shihor of Egypt even unto the entering of Hemath, to bring the Ark of God from Kirjath-jearim. And David went up and all Israel to Baalah, that is to Kirjath-jearim, which belonged to Judah, to bring up thence the Ark of God the Lord, that dwelleth between the cherubim whose name is called on it. And they carried the Ark of God in a new cart—’ In a new cart, Tessa; see how careful he was!”
“Yes.”
“‘—Out of the house of Abinadab; and Uzza and Ahir drave the cart.’ That was all right and proper, wasn’t it?”