John Newton

"God often takes a course for accomplishing His purposes directly contrary to what our narrow views would prescribe."  ~John Newton~

John Newton, born in 1725 was a slave trader  who came to know Jeaus Christ as his Savior.  His conversion radically changed his life, and as a result, he penned the words of probably the most popular hymn in the English language:

Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I'm found
'Twas blind, but now I see.

Newton wrote his own epitaph

JOHN NEWTON, Clerk
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.

A slaveship anchored off the African coast.

(Bibliothèque nationale, Paris)

from Bronz, et. al, The Challenge of America

(Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), p. 155)