STORY OF JOHN NEWTON

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=120 BGCOLOR="#FFCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="29fbd783.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#009900" FACE="Arial" ><B>Bill's Funnies  </B></FONT> <B> </B><B>|  </B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FF9900" FACE="Arial" ><B>  </B><B> </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bills Funnies "><U><B>home</B></U></A></FONT></div> <div> STORY OF JOHN NEWTON</div> <div> <A HREF="contact_me.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U>RETURN TO "CONTACT ME "</U></A></div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#CCFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="282a42a3.jpg"> <div> For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Psalms 84:11<IMG SRC="28fa4a30.gif" border=0 width="164" height="163" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div>  <embed src="HTMLobj-745/AMAZING_GRACE__RV.mid" autostart="true" loop="true" hidden="true">  </div> </td> <td valign="top" height=360 BGCOLOR="#CCFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="282a42a3.jpg"> <div> STORY OF JOHN NEWTON</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> John Newton, by all accounts was, " The wretch like me" , described in the first verse of the hymn. While a new believer around 1750, John Newton had commanded an English slave ship.</div> <bR> <div> The slave ships would make the first leg of their voyage from England nearly empty until they would anchor off of the coast of Africa. There tribal chiefs would deliver to the Europeans stockades full of men and women, captured in raids and wars against other tribes. Buyers would select the finest specimens, which would be bartered for weapons, ammunition, metal, liquor, trinkets, and cloth. The captives would be loaded aboard, packed for sailing. They were chained below decks to prevent suicides, laid side by side to save space, row after row, one after another, until the ship was laden with as many as 600 units of human cargo.</div> <bR> <div> Captains sought a fast voyage across the Atlantic's infamous            "Middle Passage", hoping to preserve as much of their cargo as possible, yet mortality rates sometimes ran 25% or higher. When an outbreak of smallpox or dysentery occurred, the stricken were cast overboard. Once they arrived in the New World, blacks were traded for sugar and molasses to manufacture rum, which the ships would carry to England for the final leg of their " triangle trade." Then off to Africa for yet another round. John Newton transported more than a few shiploads of the six million African slaves brought to the Americas in the 18th century.</div> <bR> <div> At sea by the age of eleven, he was forced to enlist on a British Man-of-war seven years later. Recaptured after desertion, the disgraced sailor was exchanged to the crew of a slave ship bound for Africa.</div> <bR> <div> It was a book that he found on board, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis, which sowed the seeds of his salvation. When a ship nearly foundered in a storm, he gave his life to Jesus. Sometime later he was promoted to captain of a slave ship. Commanding a slave ship seemed like a strange place to find a new Christian. But at last the inhuman aspects of the business began to take its toll on him and he left the sea for good.</div> <bR> <div> While working as a tide surveyor he studied for the ministry, and for the last 43 years of his life he preached the Gospel in Olney and London. At 82 Newton said, " My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things, that I am a great sinner and Jesus is a great Saviour." No wonder he understood so well grace, the completely undeserved mercy and favor of God.</div> <bR> <div> Newton's tombstone reads , " 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, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy." But a far greater testimony outlives Newton in the most famous of the hundreds of hymns that he wrote: Amazing Grace.                  </div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="contact_me.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U><IMG SRC="2bd22210.gif" border=0 width="34" height="33" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#006633" FACE="Arial" > click to return to preivious page.</FONT></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bills Funnies "><U><IMG SRC="4f6641d0.gif" border=0 width="100" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>