Amazing Grace: The Incredible Story of This Beloved Hymn

Jim Harris-The Southern Voice

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Jun 4, 2024

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Every Sunday, churches across the South include the famous hymn “Amazing Grace” in their song selections. While it is not by origin a Southern song, and a Brit wrote it, it is a part of the fabric of faith communities all across the South. It is so loved in our part of the world that we may choose to consider it “honorary Southern.” Author Jonathan Aitkin estimates that the song is played over 10 million times yearly. The song’s creation and path to the popularity it enjoys today encountered significant challenges. It was written by a man whose life choices were hardly consistent with composing spiritual music and coming about at a time when music in church services had been forbidden. It took many twists of fate to come to light.

Composer John Newton came from humble beginnings. Born in London in 1725, he spent time in a boarding school before taking to the sea at age eleven. When he was eighteen, he was captured and pressed into naval service by the Royal Navy, becoming a midshipman aboard the HMS Harwich. He tried to escape but was captured and flogged in front of the ship’s crew, and his rank was reduced to a seaman. He considered murdering the captain for revenge and then taking his own life but thought better of it.

He soon transferred to the Pegasus, a slave ship bound for Africa. He was extremely profane, creating obscene poems and songs about the captain, which led to him being shackled for the remainder of the voyage. He was abandoned in West Africa in 1745 and given to a slave trader, who gave Newton to his wife, a Sherbro Princess. He remained in slavery until 1748, when a sea captain located and rescued him at the request of Newton’s father. He returned to Britain on the Greyhound.

It was on that voyage that Newton’s path to salvation began. The ship became caught in a massive storm, lasting for days, and survival seemed impossible. One sailor was swept overboard. Newton and another sailor tied themselves to the ship’s pump to avoid experiencing the same fate. He said, “If this will not do, then Lord have mercy on us.” When it was Newton’s turn to take the wheel and steer the ship, he spent the time pondering faith. He had mocked the faith of others, only to now believe that God had sent him a profound message. When the ship’s pitch caused the cargo to shift and cover a hole in the hull that seemed like it would result in the vessel’s sinking, Newton thought it was a sign from God. His conversion to Christianity did not complete itself then, but that was the beginning.

In 1750, Newton married his high school sweetheart and adopted his two orphaned nieces soon after. He continued to work in the slave trade and eventually became a ship’s captain and investor in trafficking. A stroke forced Newton to retire in 1754, but he remained an investor in slaving operations. Newton became a tax collector, then began to study Latin, Greek, and theology, and soon became a priest, becoming ordained in 1764. His sphere of knowledge and influence grew, and he became the advisor of choice for many.

As an Anglican priest, Newton wrote hymns to accompany his sermons. Amazing Grace was one of those, written in 1772. The song has roots in the New Testament, drawing from the stories of the prodigal son and Jesus’s healing of a blind man. The first known occasion of the poem being set to music was around 1780, when it was paired to the tune of Hephzibah By John Husband. Around 1835, American composer William Walker assigned Newton’s lyrics to a traditional tune, “New Britain.” That created the version of the song we know today. Another verse to the song appeared first in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

In 1788, Newton published a pamphlet that strongly opposed slavery called “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade.” In it, he described the horrific conditions on the slave ships. He apologized for his years of supporting the practice, saying, “It was a confession that comes too late. It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” He sent copies to each Member of Parliament. The pamphlet sold well and required many printings.

Newton had an epiphany that he had not been a faithful Christian during the first years he thought he was, as he could not reconcile that Christianity could have been in his soul while he supported slavery. He said, “I was greatly deficient in many respects … I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word until a considerable time afterward.”

Newton’s efforts influenced MP William Wilberforce, who was instrumental in the British Government outlawing slavery in 1807. Newton lived to see that, dying in December of that year.

The Second Great Awaking in the U.S., which started in Kentucky and Tennessee, was behind the song’s popularity. The Conservative faith movement incorporated hymns to accent their programs, encouraging testimony and witnessing. The music has remained timeless, playing a part in historical events from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. It has been recorded thousands of times by performers from all musical genres. Artists as diverse as Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Johnny Cash, Sam Cooke, the Byrds, Elvis, Willie Nelson, and Judy Collins recorded the classic tune. Folk singer Joan Baez says it is her most requested song, and it was played at Woodstock by Arlo Guthrie.

Many refer to the hymn as our country’s “national spiritual anthem.” The Library of Congress has over 3,000 versions in its collection, and the song has also appeared in numerous films.