Respectfully sympathizing with the spirit of Fenelon than as holding to
any dogmatic system. The most dignified letter that he ever wrote was in
answer to a suggestion from
Atterbury (1717), that
he might change his religion upon the death of his
father. Pope replies that his worldly interests would be promoted by
such a step; and, in fact, it cannot be doubted that Pope might
have had a share in the good things
then obtainable by successful writers, if he had qualified
by taking the oaths. But he adds, that such a change would hurt his
mother's
feelings, and that he was more certain of his duty to promote her
happiness than of any speculative tenet whatever. He was sure that he
could mean as well in the
religion he now professed as in any other; and that being so, he thought
that a change even to an equally good religion could not be justified. A
similar
statement appears in a letter to Swift, in 1729. "I am of the religion
of Erasmus, a Catholic. So I live, so shall
I die,
and hope one day to meet
you, B
