The hymn's composer had an amazing life       

It may be the most famous hymn ever written. It has been sung by fundamentalist and evangelicals, Catholics and Protestants. Don Johnson of Miami Vice even sang it a capella on a Barbara Walters show. Not bad for an 18th-century hymn written by a former slave-ship captain turned Anglican minister.

                 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.

                 Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

                        I have already come.

                 'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

                   And grace will lead me home.

The hymn's author, John Newton, was born in LOndon on July 24, 1725, the son of a sea captain and his devout wife, Elizabeth. John's religious training ended at age seven when his mother died. By the time he was eleven, he was sailing the high seas with his father.

John has only two years of formal education, but among the other sailors he was schooled in the fine arts of cursing and blashphemy. By all accounts, including his own, he led a thoroughly debauched life. His one saving grace was Polly Catlett, with whom he fell in love when he was 17. He later wrote that her inital impression on him was never erased.

With England and France at war, John was pressed into unwilling service aboard a British man-of-war. He deserted at the first oppurtunity, but was captured, mannacled, and whipped for his offense. His back bore the scars of the flogging for the rest of his life.

Unrepentant, he waited for a second chance to escape. He got it when he offered to be traded to the captain of a slave ship, despite his love for Polly and his dream of marriage.

His new life as  a slave-ship sailor was  notoriously undisciplined. "That I was a slave to every customary vice," he admitted years later, "was perhaps the brightest part of my character."

Young John ended up working for a slave trader on an island off the coast of Sierra Leone, Africa. But the trader's mistress took an intense dislike to John, forcing him to work in her fields and to beg at her table for scraps of food. He was reduced to digging roots at night to survive. He managed, however, to smuggle letters to his fater, begging for help. John eventually was rescued by a friend of his father, the captain of a trade ship.

On the trip home, the ship was overtaken by a gale that threatened to swamp her. Death seemed certain. John, who claimed to be an atheist and was known among his colleagues for his blashphemies, remembered what his mother had taught. "The Lord have mercy on us." he cried. Almost miraculously, the ship was saved.

John's life began a gradual turn-around. As the battered ship limped home, he read The Imitaion of Christ and the Bible. He was becoming convinced of the truth of the Gospel.

Since, at that time, the slave trade did not yet carry a moral stigma, he returned to the sea and eventually became captain oh his own slave ship. He continued to sail from England to Africa to America with human cargo. Gradually, as his faith in Christ grew, so did his distaste for his work.

In February, 1750, seven years after they had met, Pollu agreed to marry John. Influenced by the preaching of George Whitefield and John Wesley, two Anglican evangelicals, John abandoned the slave trade and became a surveyor. But a desire for ministry grew in him and, at 39, he was ordained an Anglican priest.

At his parish in Olney, England, he wrote the hymns for which he is now remembered, in collaboration with the poet William Cowper. The Olney Hymns is the best known 8th century English hymnal. Today, "Amazing Grace", one of nearly 300 hymns in the collection, is among the most popular hymns ever.

John Newton was offered the church at St. Mary Woolnoth in LOndon after 16 years at Olney, and here he ended his career. At 80, with his eyesight failing, someone suggested he give up preaching. "What!" he replied  tartly. "Shall the old AFrican blasphemer stop while he can speak?"

He died at age 82, still preaching. Polly, whom he'd never stopped loving, had died of cancer 15 years earlier.

The epitaph he wrote for himself echoes the sentiments of his most famous hymn:

                                  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,

                                Preserved, restored, and

                                     pardoned,

                           And appointed to preach

                                    the faith

                           He had long labored to detroy....