John Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He was pressed into service in the Royal Navy. After leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. He continued slave trading until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether. He began studying Christian theology and later became an abolitionist.
About Amazing Grace in brief
\”Amazing Grace\” is a Christian hymn published in 1779, with words written in 1772 by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton. Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life’s path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences. He was pressed into service in the Royal Navy. After leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, so severely that he called out to God for mercy. This moment marked his spiritual conversion but he continued slave trading until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether. He began studying Christian theology and later became an abolitionist. In the United States, it became a popular song used by Baptist and Methodist preachers as part of their evangelizing, especially in the South, during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. In 1835, American composer William Walker set it to the tune known as \”New Britain\” in a shape note format. This is the version most frequently sung today. It has had particular influence in folk music, and has become an emblematic black spiritual. It became newly popular during a revival of folk music in the US during the 1960s, and it has been recorded thousands of times during and since the 20th Century. It is one of the most recognisable songs in the English-speaking world.
Author Gilbert Chase writes that it is \”without a doubt the most famous of all the folk hymns\”. Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer, estimates that the song is performed about 10 million times annually. As a youth, Newton began a pattern of coming very close to death, examining his relationship with God, then relapsing into bad habits. As a sailor, he denounced his faith after being influenced by a shipmate who discussed with him Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, a book by the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. In a series of letters Newton later wrote, “I renounced the hopes and comforts of the Gospel at the very time when every other was about to fail me” He took advantage of opportunities to visit Mary Catlett, a friend with whom he had fallen in love. After enduring humiliation, he was forced to work on a plantation in the British colony of Sierra Leone. After several months he began a career in slave trading. He became openly mocked the captain by creating obscene poems and songs about him which became so popular that he began to join in disagreements with several colleagues. He took the opportunity to leave the crew and visit MaryCatlett. He later became a curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he started to write hymnns with poet William Cowper. It debuted in print in 17 1979 in Newton and Cowper’s Olney Hymns but settled into relative obscurity.
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This page is based on the article Amazing Grace published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
