the second book. The books of Chronicles, which follow the Kings,
contain frequent allusions to the law; but these books, as we shall see
by and by, were written long afterward; and the tradition which they
embody cannot be so safe a guide as that of the earlier histories. It is
in Chronicles that we learn of the attempt which was made by one of the
good kings of Judah, Jehoshaphat, to have certain princes, priests, and
Levites appointed to teach the law; they went about the land, it is
said, teaching the people, "and had the book of the law of Jehovah with
them." I think that this is the first intimation, after the death of
Moses, that the law delivered by him had been publicly taught or even
read in connection with the ordinances of worship. The earlier narrative
of Jehoshaphat's reign, which we find in the Book of the Kings, makes no
allusion to this circumstance.

Nearly three hundred years after Jehoshaphat, and nearly five hundred
years after David, the young King Josiah was reigning in Jerusalem. The
temple had fallen into ruin, and the good king determined to have it
repaired. Hilkiah, the high priest, who was rummaging among the rubbish
of the dilapidated sanctuary, found there the Book of the Law of the
Lord. The surprise which he manifests at this discovery, the trepidation
of Shaphan the scribe, who hastens to tell the king about it, and the
consternation of the king when he listens for the first time in his life
to the reading of the book, and discovers how grievously its
commandments have been disobeyed, form one of the most striking scenes
of the old history. "How are we to explain," asks Dr. Perowne, "this
surprise and alarm in the mind of Josiah, betraying, as it does, such
utter ignorance of the Book of the Law and the severity of its
threatenings,--except on the supposition that as a written document it
had well-nigh perished?" [Footnote: Smith's _Bible Dictionary_,
art. "Pentateuch."] Undoubtedly "the Book of the Law" thus discovered