He supported himself against the wall of the court, and opened the papyrus-roll handed to him by his favorite pupil, the young Anana.

It was the book which twenty-four hours ago he had promised to begin upon.

He looked now upon the characters that covered it, and felt that he was unable to read a word.
With a powerful effort he collected himself, and looking upwards tried to find the thread he had cut at the end of yesterday's lecture, and intended to resume to-day; but between yesterday and to-day, as it seemed to him, lay a vast sea whose roaring surges stunned his memory and powers of thought.
His scholars, squatting cross-legged on reed mats before him, gazed in astonishment on their silent master who was usually so ready of speech, and looked enquiringly at each other.

A young priest whispered to his neighbor, "He is praying--" and Anana noticed with silent anxiety the strong hand of his teacher clutching the manuscript so tightly that the slight material of which it consisted threatened to split.
At last Pentaur looked down; he had found a subject.

While he was looking upwards his gaze fell on the opposite wall, and the painted name of the king with the accompanying title "the good God" met his eye.
Starting from these words he put this question to his hearers, "How do we apprehend the Goodness of the Divinity ?" He challenged one priest after another to treat this subject as if he were standing before his future congregation.
Several disciples rose, and spoke with more or less truth and feeling.
At last it came to Anana's turn, who, in well-chosen words, praised the purpose-full beauty of animate and inanimate creation, in which the goodness of Amon [Amon, that is to say, "the hidden one." He was the God of Thebes, which was under his aegis, and after the Hykssos were expelled from the Nile-valley, he was united with Ra of Heliopolis and endowed with the attributes of all the remaining Gods.