History On Amazing Grace :: essays research papers

     "Amazing mildness, how sweet the sound..." So begins one of the most be fuckd hymns of all eons, a staple in the hymnals of m whatever denominations. The author of the words was John Newton, the self-proclaimed wretch who oncewas baffled but then was found, saved by amazing grace. Newton was born(p) in London July 24, 1725, the son of a commander of a merchant ship which sailed the Mediterranean. In 1744 John was impressed into service on a man-of-war, the H. M. S.Harwich. Finding conditions on board intolerable, he deserted but was presently recaptured and publicly flogged and demoted from midshipman to common seaman. Finally at his induce request he was exchanged into service on a slave ship, which tookhim to the coast of sierra Leone. He then became the servant of a slave trader and was savagely abused. Early in 1748 he was rescued by a sea captain who had known Johns father. John Newton ultimately became captain of his own ship, onewhich plied the slave trade. Although he had had some early religious program line from his mother, who had died when he was a child, he had long since wedded up any religious convictions. However, on a homeward voyage, while he was attemptingto backsheesh the ship through a violent storm, he experienced what he was to refer to later as his "great deliverance." He recorded in his journal that when all seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, he exclaimed, "Lord, nurse mercy upon us." Laterin his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to believe that God had addressed him through the storm and that grace had begun to work for him. For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of may 10, 1748 as the day of hisconversion, a day of humiliation in which he subjected his will to a higher power. "Thro many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come tis grace has brot me safe thus far, and grace will kick in me home." He continued in the slave trade for atime after his conversion however, he saw to it that the slaves under his care were toughened humanely. In 1750 he married Mary Catlett, with whom he had been in love for many years. By 1755, after a serious illness, he had given up seafaringforever. He decided to become a minister of religion and applied to the Archbishop of York for ordination.