Mil's Place: "AMAZING GRACE! HOW SWEET THE SOUND!"

"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!"
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"Humans have this basic limitation of being ' human.' Our finite minds can only assimilate so much. If we mortals had the mental and emotional capacity to fully comprehend the fact, to the bottoms of our minds and souls, that the debt has been paid---that God forgives us, and as a free gift of love, gives us an eternal home in heaven with Him, we would be totally overwhelmed by the hymn...Amazing grace, how sweet the sound....." ---------R.M.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound" first appeared titled as "Faith's Review and Expectations," in the "Olney Hymns," a collection of English hymns authored by John Henry Newton (1725-1807) and William Cowper, (pronounced "Cooper"), poet and friend of Newton. Amazing Grace is one of the most popular hymns of Christianity. It is almost certainly the "most universally accepted" one by all denominations. The original title was soon forgotten and probably not even known by most people.

John Henry Newton, its author had quite a life---the first half being practically a reprobate, and the second---a respected Anglican minister and hymn-writer.

Starting a career as a sailor---John was introduced to the sea at age eleven, by his father, himself a seaman. His mother had died of TB when he was seven and when he went to live with his father four years later, he took him on six sea voyages, before he retired. Then he arranged a job for young John, in Jamaica, working for a sugar plantation. But John liked the sea and signed on instead, with a merchant ship sailing to the Mediterranean. Somehow, while John was ashore at a port-of-call, he was impressed into the Royal Navy, that being a common method of "enlisting" new crew members at that period of history.

This began what we today would call an "awful" sequence of events. He tried to desert but was caught and flogged; humiliated, he considered suicide. The Royal Navy decided to get rid of him and he was transferred to Pegasus, a slave ship, carrying goods to Africa to trade for slaves. Because John, was not a "happy sailor" by any means, the Pegasus left him in West Africa, with a slave trader who gave him to his wife, Princess Peye. She treated him like one of her slaves. (It was this period that Newton later remembered as the time he was "once an infidel and a libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa.")

He was later rescued by a sea captain and taken back to England aboard the merchant ship Greyhound. During this voyage, the ship, caught in a terrible storm, almost sank and Newton, calling out to God, experienced a spiritual conversion. The date was March 10, 1748, one he remembered and thought of throughout his life. He gave up profanity, gambling, and drinking, but he continued to work on slave ships, though with a greater measure of pity for the slaves than before.

He obtained a responsible job aboard the slave ship Brownlow, bound for Africa, and on this voyage he came down with a serious fever and barely survived. Again he called on God, and said later that his complete conversion and true devotion to God came about at this time. It was the first time he had felt total peace with God.

He became a tax collector at the port of Liverpool and began studying theology, Hebrew, and Greek. He finally became a crusader against slavery, encouraging English parliament members to fight it in the government. He was eventually ordained and certified as a priest of the Church of England. He became well-known as a strong supporter of evangelicalism in this church. His fight against slavery paid off when the State Trade Act of 1807 abolished the slave trade.

In 1767, the poet William Cowper moved to Olney, where John Newton was vicar, and the two collaborated on the "Olney Hymns," published in 1779. This work had a great impact and influence on English hymnody. The "Olney Hymns" contained many of Newton's well-known hymns:

"Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken"
"How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds"
"Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder"
"Come My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare"
"Approach My Soul, the Mercy-seat"
and
"Faith's Review and Expectation" (which we now know as "Amazing Grace.")

John Newton said later in his life: "I hope it will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me that I was once an active instrument in the business in which my heart now shudders."

There were six stanzas of "Amazing Grace" appearing the first edition of
Olney Hymns, 1779:

"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 danger, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

The lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and buckler be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

Hymnals list the tune "Amazing Grace" composer (the tune name in this case being the same as the poem name)---as "Early American Melody." Being a "common meter" (8.6.8.6.) hymn, there are nineteen tunes in one hymnal which could conceivably be used to sing Amazing Grace. Really, no one wants to sing the hymn to any other tune, generally speaking, but in my work as a church music director, once or twice, I used Azmon, Avon, and Arlington.

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"But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us
alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions---it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the
heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, it is the gift of God---not by works, so that no man can boast." Ephesians 2: 4-9
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