Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/88

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EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION.
73

Of another great personage it is said that, in administering justice, "he made no distinction between a stranger and those known to him. He was the other of the weak, the support of him who had no mother. Feared by the ill-doer, he protected the poor; he was the avenger of those whom a more powerful one had deprived of property. He was the husband of the widow, the refuge of the orphan."[1]

It is said of another[2] that he was "the protector of the humble, a palm of abundance to the destitute, food to the hungry and the poor, largeness of hand to the weak;" and another passage implies that his wisdom was at the service of those who were ignorant.

The tablet of Beka,[3] now at Turin, thus describes the deceased:

"I was just and true without malice, placing God in my heart and quick in discerning his will. I have come to the city of those who dwell in eternity. I have done good upon earth; I have done no wrong; I have done no crime; I have approved of nothing base or evil, but have taken pleasure in speaking the truth,

  1. Tablet of Antuf, Louvre, c. 26. I quote from M. de Rougé's Notice des Monuments, p. 88.
  2. British Museum, 581. This text, of which a copy is given in Sharpe, "Egyptian Inscriptions," Vol. II. p. 83, is a difficult one, and would repay a careful study.
  3. Published, with a translation and commentary by M. Chabas, in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Vol. V. p. 459.