Amazing Grace, is still the best loved and best known hymn in the Western World, written of course by former Slave Trader, John Newton.  It has struck me as ironic of late, perhaps with a connection to how we like things that are pleasing to us, whether they are pleasing to God or not, that the very stanza most folks would say is their favourite today, was not written till 1910, long after Newton’s death and does not belong to the original  hymn. The Hymn as Newton wrote it is below.

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.

A small anecdote on John Newton, give his former slave trading, is that when William Wilberforce, who was to become the great abolitionist, first entered politics, it was as a dare and a joke. He lived the high life for several years, and did not take his occupation seriously at all. However, after he had a thorough conversion, several years into his political life, he started questioning if politics was where God wanted him to be and was his calling.  And the irony is, and a wonderful ironic providence of God, that to get counsel on this matter, of if he should stay in politics or not, he went to John Newton’s house in London, and Newton told him emphatically yes he should stay. If not for the former slave trader giving that counsel,  perhaps Wilberforce would never  have become the great abolitionist.

The epitaph on John Newton’s gravestone says:

JOHN NEWTON, Clerk [preacher]
Once an infidel and libertine
A servant of slaves in Africa,
Was, by the rich mercy
of our Lord and Saviour
JESUS CHRIST,
restored, pardoned and
appointed to preach
the Gospel which he had
long laboured to destroy.
He ministered,
Near sixteen years in Olney, in Bucks,
And twenty eight years in this Church.

Written by John Newton, it is engraved on a marble plaque in St Mary, Woolnoth, UK.