Four years of being alone and feeling no kinship came to an end when young John, now eleven, was whisked off by his father. A seafaring man, young John's father was seldom home. Perhaps for a young lad this would seem an adventure. After all, living on the sea was the romantic ideal of all young lads, was it not?

    No, not for young John, who attempted all withal to hold fast to the religious lessons he gained at his mother's knee. Prayer, the recitation of catechism, even the keeping of a spiritual journal were done by the young lad, John. But to no avail. The depression that had encompassed him like a dark cloud only continued to strangle his soul, until John found a replacement- excess.

    Our dear John had now taken to replacing all things righteous with all things in excess- except righteousness. Glutton of food and drink; gluttony of physical passions with ladies; the foulest cursing streaming from his once sacramented lips; John now was able to describe himself as "a superb orator for the Antichrist."

    The only stabilizing force in young John's life at this time came in the form of Mary Catlett, the daughter of family friends. Though his religion had died, his love for Mary grew. During his seafaring days, young John's dreams and hopes were always about sailing back to his beloved Mary.

    But barely one year after telling Mary of his immense love for her, our young John was press-ganged into the crew of the USS Harwick. The Harwick was a 900 ton warship with a crew of over 300 men.

    For those unfamiliar with press-ganging, it was the act of forced conscription into the British Navy. Sanctioned by King Edward I, and alternately called "impressment", it was a far cry from today's "draft". Instead, the press-gangs found victims in pubs. They would drop a shilling into a man's mug (without the man knowing) and when the man got to the bottom of the mug and found the shilling, his thought to leave and head for home was deterred by the press-gang waiting for him around the corner to drag him off.

    Press-ganging was an activity which led to the war of 1812. The Americans didn't take kindly to being"accidentally" press-ganged into service, and over 6,000 American men were "pressed" into Naval service this way.

    So terrible were conditions for those who were press-ganged, even the great Winston Churchill declared many years later that the British Royal Navy was built on "rum, sodomy, and flogging."

    Though Newton mentions no participation in sodomy, he did enjoy his rum, he was known as an insubordinate, and he went AWOL on more than one occasion.

    In 1745 the Harwick sailed for Africa and India on a five year trek. Desiring more than ever to return to his beloved Mary, young John asked for a transfer to a merchant ship headed for Sierra Leone to pick up a load of slaves.

    John, however, was still an arrogant man and his fornicating ways got the better of him. He imbibed in raping young slave girls and eventually gained the ire of his new captain. John was summarily dismissed from duty and was joined up with another slave trading ship.

    His new employer, an unnamed Englishman, had an African mistress known only by the initials P.I. She had been a Chieftain's daughter and herself had numerous slaves attending her needs. She also took a dislike to young John. So intense was her dislike for him, that on one occasion young John, sickened by malaria, was left in his own filth and stench. Only the slaves gave him morsels of food. But P.I. would not suffer anyone to care for him with her own consent.

    One would think coming so near to death, and seeing the kindnesses of the slaves, our young John would have come about full force, but he was nowhere near broken of his brashness and self-aggrandizement. He sent letters to his beloved Mary, begging her for some rescue. He passed these letters through slaves, uncertain if they would ever reach his beloved.

    In what some could call a twist of fate- and what our young John would recognize as God's providence- another trader came along and John was readily employed. This ship traded slaves for guns, pots, pans, whatever the local Chieftains thought was fair price in exchange for the lives of others. Our young John, still not humbled, was welcomed by the local chiefs and was offered feast of both food and sexual indulgences.

    John came to enjoy the natives around him and found their ways most acceptable to himself, especially their lack of religious environs. He noted that they worshiped a god, but it was not a god of any rules with which young John was afore acquainted.

    Now all Christianity was void from young John's heart and mind. And as well, the desires and love for Mary. For young John, all things were possible- no matter how estranged from God they may be. By age twenty-five, young John was still destined to become the worst among the worst- his own slave trader.

    Between1750 and 1754, young John would make three voyages as captain of his own slave ship. He would keep meticulous diaries and yes, he married his love, Mary, in 1750.

    His first captaincy was in 1750 on board the Duke of Argyle. He collected 174 slaves to take to Charleston, South Carolina. En route, twenty-eight slaves and seven crewmen died..

    John's next two voyages were on The African, in June of 1752 and again in October of 1753. They hauled slaves from East Africa to the Caribbean.

    Among his duties as captain was the inspection of slaves once aboard his ship. Because the trip required good health; and because the healthier and heartier the more he would receive; John had strict criteria. He refused to accept any in ill health of any kind; he wanted only women who could bear children; and he rejected women whom he called "fallen breasted." A sign that they lacked virility.

    According to the reports, young John kept a civil ship on the topside, however, conditions for the slaves were far from optimum. They were shackled two by two and made to lay side by side in cramped quarters. In the lower cell where they were held, the stench of vomit, feces and urine were so strong that even the heartiest of sailors hesitated to go down into the holding area.

    Young John adopted a "form of godliness" one could say. He held prayer on a daily basis and ordered all hands to participate in Sunday worship, complete with hymns singing. This they did whilst ignoring the screams and cries of the slaves below them.

    Like many who fall prey to their own hypocrisy, John was able to justify what he was doing. In letters to his beloved Mary (whom now he felt possible to impress) he would state that these slaves had no words in their language for such things as love, religion, or liberty. Therefore, he reasoned, they were an inferior being. In one of his quite prideful moments, he declared in a letter: "How greatly God has distinguished me!"

    If ever there were a case of a person claiming God but not living God, our young John would be it. And even today, so many proclaim: "I am Christian!" Yet their lives tell quite another tale!

    This same young John would become the man who would pen the most famous song lyrics in history. Playing the Christian as convenient to himself was easy for him; turning himself over to Christ came after he realized he had been rescued from the providence of God Almighty, and by His Amazing Grace.

    What a lifetime of rescue couldn't accomplish, a storm at sea managed to convict in the heart of young John Newton. So much so was he convicted, that he came to realize slave trading was a grave evil that had to be ended. His biography and his words would inspire another man, William Wilberforce, in the abolition of slavery.

    Recently converted to Christ, Wilberforce wrote to John Newton while he was serving as rector St. Mary Woolnoth. This was in the 1780's, years after John Newton's own conversion to Christ. Wilberforce's conversion, however, was far from that of scalawag to saint. Rather, it was a conversion of conscience as well as to salvation, adding into it an "evangelical" approach.

    Now, you're probably wondering why this long treatise. What does this have to do with anything? What is the amazing grace other than a song?

    From rapist, drunkard, and slave trader, to a man after God's own heart. The story of John Newton is seen in various forms and various lives throughout history. Amazing grace, indeed it is. To quote John Newton:

    "By one hour's intimate access to the throne of grace, where the Lord causes His glory to pass before the soul that seeks Him you may acquire more true spiritual knowledge and comfort than a day's or a week's converse with the best of men, or the most.”