Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

John Newton

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.

Thro' many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come.

'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

When we've been there ten thousand years,

Bright shinning as the sun,

We've no less days to sing God's praise;

Than when we first begun.

John Newton's mother was a devoted Christian who prayed earnestly for her son. She died when Newton was seven and his life fell deeper and deeper into sin. He alternated between boarding school and the high seas. He eventually joined the British Navy which he deserted and was beaten for it. On March 9, 1748 he was on a ship when a horrible storm started. The next day he cried out to the Lord to deliver him. He became one of Britain's most powerful evangelists and wrote hundreds of hymns. Newton added this verse at the end of "Amazing Grace" that has almost been forgotten:

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,

the sun forbear to shine;

But God, Who called me here below,

shall be forever mine.

*Hymn history taken from "Then Sings My Soul" by Robert J. Morgan.