Welcome Home!

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved 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 relieved. How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed!

The Lord has promised good to me; His word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.

Thro' many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come. 'Tis grace hath bro't me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

When we've been there ten thousand years, bright, shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we'd first begun.

John Newton was born in London on August 4, 1725, to Captain John Newton, Elder and his wife Elizabeth. Captain Newton was the shipmaster of the English Royal Navy. Elizabeth contracted consumption (tuberculosis) and passed away 2 weeks before John’s 7^th birthday. Not long after her death, his father sent him to a boarding school for 2 years before his father remarried and moved his family to Essex. When John turned 11, his father allowed him to join him on a voyage. John loved spending time on the ships at sea. John and his father went on 6 voyages together before Captain Newton retired in 1742. Captain Newton made plans for John to work a sugarcane field in Jamaica. John signed on with merchant ship and began sailing on the Mediterranean Sea. In 1743, John became a member of the Royal Navy, he tried to desert his crew and was sentenced to be flogged and be demoted. After his punishment, he contemplated murdering his commanding officer and suicide and decided against both ideas. In 1745, he was soon transferred to a slave ship. John and the crew on the slave ship were not cordial and the crew deserted him and left him with the slave dealer. He was repeatedly abused. Captain Newton had heard about this and asked a friend to investigate his son’s most recent voyage. John was rescued and sent back to his family, in England in 1748. While on the voyage back to England, there was a severe storm. John decided to pray and ask God to save the crew, passengers, and a safe return to England. The storm died down, and the voyage lasted for 4 more weeks. Once back in England, he began to read the Bible and other Biblical literature. He became a “Christian” in March 1748. John stopped using profanity, drinking and gambling, but still wanted to work in the slave trade industry. John went on several slave trade voyages and suffered a severe stroke on his last slave trade voyage. On February 12, 1750, he married his childhood girlfriend, Mary. They had no biological children but adopted his orphan nieces. In 1755, he was appointed to become a tax collector in Liverpool, and began to study Greek, Hebrew, and other languages. He applied to become an ordained minister in 1757 but did not become accepted for 7 years. He did not fully become a Christian until 1764. Three years later, he wrote “Amazing Grace”. In 1788, 34 years after retiring from the salve trade industry, he wrote a pamphlet speaking out about the atrocities and the horrific living conditions of the slaves on the ships and that he regretted his stance on the slave trade. “I was greatly deficient in many respects; I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the words until a considerable time afterwards.” In 1790, Mary passed away. He wrote another booklet and dedicated it to his wife, expressing the effects of grief over her passing. His health and eyesight declined, he passed away on December 13, 1807.