---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Alexander Pope
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 5
number: 1
published: 1901-11
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Alexander Pope, "The Dying Christian to His Soul," *Improvement Era* 5, no. 1 (November 1901): 17.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0501unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0501unse
start_page: 17
end_page: 17
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1901-11)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0501unse
  publication_year: 1901
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1901, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Dying Christian to His Soul

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—

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM SELECTIONS.

[Criticism has reached us that some of the selections, or rather some
of the ideas in the selections, published last month for the convenience
of members who did not have the text-books containing the articles re-
ferred to in the Manual, were not orthodox in doctrine. Let the reader
remember that these selections, while it is sought to have them high-
class and appropriate, are given more for their literary merit and power
to awaken thought, than for any orthodox religious doctrine they may
contain. If you find wrong ideas in them, discard such, and show how
much better and grander are the true doctrines of the Gospel which you
have learned. It is important that we discriminate between truth and
error in all that is read. It is absurd to picture the soul as possessing
wings, but nevertheless, that is a beautiful thought, expressed in Pope's
Dying Christian to his Soul:
My ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
grave! where is thy victory?
Death! where is thy sting?

We wish further to say that the selections named in the Manual are
merely suggestive. If you are displeased with their simplicity, provide
others of deeper meaning; and if you have better ones, use them; but be
sure that those you pick out are as meaningful and as good. You will
find under, "Choice Selections," in Volume Four of the Era, a number of
excellent and instructive readings; try some of them. In choosing, it is
well to bear in mind that those compositions are best which are most ap-
propriate to the main subject under discussion; so also with hymns and
songs. Editors.]

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.
BY ALEXANDER POPE.

[Alexander Pope, the renowned author of "Essay on Criticism," was
born in Lombard Street, London, 1688. He translated Homer and went