“Did he have another opportunity?” asked Tessa, at last. “I can understand how afraid he was. I was troubled because I gave thanks for the thing that was taken away from me. Did he find an answer to his ‘How’?”
“He was thankful, sincere, and careful.”
“I should think that was enough,” exclaimed Tessa, almost indignantly; “but I know that there was sin somewhere, else the anger of the Lord would not have been kindled. They went home without the Ark. That is saddest of all.”
“It was kept three months in the house of Obed-edom, and during those three months humbled David studied the law and found that his cart, new as it was, was not according to the will of God.
“‘Then David said, None ought to carry the Ark of God but the Levites; for them hath the Lord chosen to carry the Ark of God, and to minister unto Him forever.’”
“And he could have known that before,” cried Tessa.
“‘And David gathered all Israel together to Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Lord unto his place, which he had prepared for it, and David assembled the children of Aaron and the Levites and said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the Ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it. For because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought Him not after the due order.”
“Oh, how can we know every thing to do at the first?”
“How could David have known? Now he had found the right way to do the right thing. ‘So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the Ark of the Lord God of Israel. And the children of the Levites bare the Ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded, according to the word of the Lord. And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy. So David, and the elders of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went to bring up the Ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the house of Obed-edom with joy.’”
“He was not afraid now,” said Tessa. “I think that he was all the more joyful because he had been so humiliated and afraid. I will think about that new cart.”