I was born in 1725 and I died in 1807. The only godly influence in my life, as far back as I can remember, was my mother: whom I had for only seven years. When she left my life, through death, I was virtually an orphan. My father fast remarried, sent me to a strict military school where the severity of discipline almost broke my back. I couldn't stand it any longer and I left in rebellion at the age of 10. One year later, deciding that I would never enter formal education again, I became a seaman apprentice, hoping somehow to step into my father's trade and learn, at least, the ability to skillfully navigate a ship. By and by, through the process of time, I slowly gave myself over to the devil; and I determined that I would sin to my fill without restraint, now that the righteous lamp of my life had gone out. I did that until my days in the military service, where again discipline worked hard against me, but I further rebelled. My spirit would not break and I became increasingly more and more a rebel. Because of a number of things that I disagreed with in the military, I finally deserted only to be captured like a common criminal and beaten publicly several times. After enduring the punishment, I again fled. I entertained thoughts of suicide on my way to Africa, deciding that that would be the place I could get the farthest from anyone that knew me. And again I made a pact with the devil to live for him. Somehow, through the process of events, I got in touch with a Portuguese slave trader and I lived in his home. He was married to a black woman who was brimming with hostility and took a lot of it out on me. And she beat me, and I ate like a dog on the floor of the home. If I refused to do that, she would whip me with a lash. I fled penniless owning only the clothes on my back to the shoreline of Africa where I built a fire hoping to attract a ship that was passing by. The skipper thought that I had gold or slaves or ivory to sell and was surprised and disappointed to find only me. I wanted somehow to find my way back to my country. He took me on board because I was a skilled navigator and it was there that I virtually lived for a long period of time. It was a slave ship. It was not uncommon for as many as 600 blacks from Africa to be in the hold of the ship down below being taken to America. I went through all sorts of narrow escapes with death, only a hairbreadth away on a number of occasions. One time, I opened a number of crates of rum and got everybody on the crew drunk. The skipper, incensed with my action, beat me, threw me down below and I lived on stale bread and sour vegetables for an unendurable amount of time; he brought me above to beat me again and I fell overboard. Because I couldn't swim, he harpooned me to get me back on the ship. I lived with the scar in my side big enough for me to put my fist into until the day of my death. On board, I was inflamed with fever, I was enraged with humiliation, and a storm broke out and I wound up again in the hold of the ship down among the pumps. To keep the ship afloat, I worked alone as a servant of the slaves. There bruised and confused, bleeding, diseased, I was the epitome of the degenerate man. And I remembered the words of my mother. I cried out to God the only way I knew, calling upon His Son to save me. The only glimmer of light I could find was in a crack in the ship and I screamed for help. God heard me. Thirty-one years passed, I married a childhood sweetheart, I entered the ministry and every place that I served, rooms had to be built to the building to handle the crowds that came to hear the gospel that was presented and the story of God's grace in my life. I decided before my death to put my life story in verse and that verse has become, perhaps, the greatest of all the hymns of the church. My tombstone above my head reads,
"Born 1725, Died 1807, a clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he once labored to destroy."
"My name, John Newton. My life: Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see."
