  PREPARING FOR THE TEMPLE. FIRST READING.
WHEN David was king his people did wrong again; and there came a plague upon them, so that a great number of them died all through the land of Israel. David and his priests, and all the good men, fasted and prayed, and entreated that God would turn His anger away. And while they were praying, David saw the Destroying Angel standing with his drawn sword over Jerusalem; but the plague had not begun there. Then David prayed the more; and God made known to him that he must offer up a sacrifice on the threshing-floor of Ornan, just by Jerusalem, and then the plague should be stopped. A threshing-floor was a flat rocky place on the top of a hill, where the sheaves of corn were laid out, and oxen drew boards, with the under side covered with spikes, to knock the grain out of the ears. Oman's threshing-floor was upon Mount Moriah, where Isaac had been so nearly sacrificed. He was threshing wheat on it when David came and desired to buy it for the sacrifice. Ornan was a good man, and said he would give the whole place to the king. But David said, "I will not offer unto my God of that which doth cost me nothing." So he bought the place of Ornan, the oxen, and the threshing tools; and the sacrifice was The King said... I dwell in a house of cedar But the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. QUESTIONS.
THE BRINGING UP OF THE ARK SECOND READING.
YOU know the two Tables of the Commandments were kept in the Ark of the Covenant; and when the Israelites were going about in the wilderness, they had a beautiful tent to keep it in. But now they had come into the Land of Promise, and had no more journeys to make, David wished to build a house, or temple, where the Ark might be kept, and to make it beautiful for the glory of God. But the Lord had sent a prophet to tell David that he must not himself build a house for God, because he had been a man of war, and had fought, and shed much blood; but that his son Solomon should be a man of rest, and should build the Temple for the Lord. David did not repine. He thanked God for giving him the hope that his son should do this great work; and all the rest of his life he was busy getting together gold and silver, brass and iron, and beautiful cedar wood, all for the Temple of his God. It was to be built on Mount Moriah, on the threshing-floor he had bought of Ornan, just by the city of Jerusalem, which David had conquered from the Jebusites, and made the capital of his kingdom. QUESTIONS.
THIRD READING.
DAVID had grown to be a very old man, near to his death; but, before he died, he called all the princes of his people together at Jerusalem, and asked them all to bring offerings to help to build a beautiful house, to be a Temple to the Lord their God. So all the people brought what precious things they could, to add to what the king had prepared; and a great quantity was ready—all willingly offered. Then good King David stood up and made his offering. "All things come of Thee," he said, "and of Thine own have we given Thee." And he thanked and blessed the Lord God, who had been with him all his life; and he blessed his people Israel, and showed them his son Solomon, who was to reign after him; and he gave DAVID'S THREE MIGHTY MEN.—2 Sam. 23:16, 17. SOLOMON ANOINTED KING.—1 Kings 1:39. QUESTIONS.
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