tope. "Vital spark of heavenly flame ! Quit, oh, quit, this mortal frame ! Trembling, hoping, ling'ring. living, Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying ! Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life !"
It has been urged by critics that it is inconsistent, and inconceivable that a dying man should hold such a so- liloquy with his soul— it is altogether too studied and rhetorical, too artificial. Although undoubtedly a grand poem, yet it cannot be regarded strictly as a hymn, any more than Toplady's famous production, "Deathless principle! arise," judged by the rule of St. Augustine, who tells us, "A hymn must be praise — the praise of God, and this in the form of a song."
Pope died May, 1744. He does not seem to have been a very lovable character, if we may judge him by his caustic satires. His person was small and deformed ; and his temper of mind often also crooked, as we learn from one of his best friends, bishop Atterbury, who once, re- ferring to Pope's irrascibility, described him as " mens curva in corpore curve" The best edition of his Works is by Roscoe (Lond. 10 vols. 8vo). It is one of the choicest contributions to English literature of the pres- ent century. See Life by Dr. Johnson prefixed to Pope's Works; Stephen, Hist, of English Thought, ii, 348-360 et al. ; Chambers, Cyclop. <>f Engl. Lit. vol. ii; Warton, Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope ; Macdonald, England's A ntiphon, p. 285. See also the excellent notes on the literature of Pope by Superintendent. Winsor, of Boston, in his Catalogue of the Boston Public Library (2d ed. July, 1873), p. 221* col. i; Westminst, Rev. xcii, 149 ; Lond. Qu. Rev. Oct. 1875, art. iii. (J. H. W.)
Pope, Fielding, a Presbyterian divine, noted es- pecially as an educator, was born in Virginia in 1800. He was educated in Marysville College, Tenn., studied divinity at the Southern and Western Theological Sem- inary, was licensed and ordained in 1826, and began his labors as stated supply for Mars' Hill, Columbiana, and Shilo churches, near Athens, Tenn. This relation ex- isted until 1833, when he accepted a professorship in Marysville College, Tenn.; in 1844 he resigned this po- sition and devoted all his time to the ministry; in 1852 he was connected as president with the Masonic Fe- male Institute of Marysville; and in 1857 he took charge of New Providence Church in Marysville, in all of which labors he was earnest, and faithful. He died March 23, 18G7. Mr. Pope was a man of great power and popularity in the pulpit. See Wilson, Presb. Hist. A Imanac, 1868, p. 365. (J. L. S.)
Poper, Henry, a clergyman of the Church of Eng- land and missionary among the Jews, was born of Jew- ish parentage, in the year 1813, at Breitenbach, in Elec- toral Hesse, Germany. At Hildesheim, the native place of his mother, he received his early education at the fa- mous school which flourished under the superintendence of the Jewish rabbi Wolfsohn. Besides, he was also pri- vately instructed that, he might, prepare himself for the office of a teacher. When about the age of eighteen (May, 1831), Poper received an appointment as Jewish teacher and reader in the synagogue, having also occa- sionally to lecture in the synagogue. During the period of eight years he filled this office in two places in the
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kingdom of Hanover, when, at last, by reading the N.-T. Scriptures and Christian intercourse, thai change was brought about which was decisive l"r 1<!> whole future life. Julj 15, 1839, he received ( hristian baptism. When in the following year the London Society l<>r Propagating Christianity among the Jews opened the Hebrew college for the purpose of training up mission- aries i" work ai g God's ancient people, Poper was
enrolled a- one of the first students. In June, 1842, Poper was appointed by the committee to labor at Frankfort-on-the-Main, was subsequently ordained to the ministry of the Church of England, and continued iged in the Master's service in thai city until his death, April 22, L870. Poper was a very active mis- sionary, and was highly esteemed for his zeal and efforts
both an g Jews and Christians. When, on April 25,
1870, Ids earthly remains were carried to their resting- place, all the Protestant pastors of the city, accompanied by many Hebrew-Christians and .lews, followed to the grave. A rabbi of a reformed synagogue, when in- formed by a missionary of Poper's death, said, ''Mr. Poper was a very good man. 1 have known him well. He was greatly respected anion-- my friends, who were also his friends. I liked him very much, although he was a convert to Christianity" a remarkable testimony for a Jew to make of an apostate. See Jewish Intelli- gencer, L870; Missionsblatt fur Israel, 1870; Dibreh Emeth i Breslau, L870). (B.P.)
Popery literally means attachment to the religion or to the party of the pope; and in this sense the word is synonymous with the profession of the Roman I ath- olie religion. In its use. however, it has come to in- volve either lie' idea of contempt or disparagement, or is intended to designate what are regarded by Prot- estants as the mosl exaggerated and superstitious among the doctrines and practices which they ascribe to Roman Catholic-, and of which the principal are the infallibility of i he Church; the supremacy of the pope; the doctrine of the seven sacraments— namely, baptism, confirma- tion, the Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, order.-, and matrimony: the celibacy of the clergy; the worship of saints and the Virgin Mary, of pictures and images; prayers for the dead, intercession of saints, purgatory, unwritten t radii ion,-, etc. A proper distinction i- made by some -a riters between popery and the papacy. Pop- ery is the err on- principle- salvation /»/ man— in op- position io the truth of the Gospel, which is salvation li'i grace. The papacy i- the secular organization in which this error is embodied. The one i- the body, the other the animating and controlling spirit See Popish