John Newton playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF44544DEAD10B5D2 Letter on Political Debate - John Newton (Christian Audio Book) John Henry Newton (July 24, 1725 -- December 21, 1807) was an English Anglican clergyman and former slave-ship captain. He was the author of many hymns, including "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken." Newton tells his own story: "I was born in London the 24th of July, 1725, old style. My parents, though not wealthy, were respectable. My father was many years master of a ship in the Mediterranean trade. In the year 1748 he went Governor of York Fort in Hudson's Bay, where he died in the year 1750. "My mother was a dissenter, a pious woman, and a member of the late Dr. Jennings's church. She was of a weak, consumptive habit, loved retirement, and, as I was her only child, she made it the chief business and pleasure of her life to instruct me, and bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I have been told, that, from my birth, she had, in her mind, devoted me to the ministry; and that, had she lived till I was of a proper age, I was to have been sent to St Andrew's in Scotland to be educated. But the Lord had appointed otherwise. My mother died before I was seven years of age. "I was rather of a sedentary turn, not active and playful, as boys commonly are, but seemed as willing to learn as my mother was to teach me. I had some capacity, and a retentive memory. When I was four years old, I could read, (hard names excepted,) as well as I can now: and could likewise repeat the answers to the questions in the Assembly's Shorter Catechism, with the proofs; and all Dr. Watt's smaller Catechisms, and his Children's Hymns. "When my father returned from sea, after my mother's death, he married again. My new mother was the daughter of a substantial grazier at Aveley in Essex. She seemed willing to adopt and bring me up; but, after two or three years, she had a son of her own, who engrossed the old man's notice. My father was a very sensible, and a moral man, as the world rates morality; but neither he, nor my step-mother, was under the impressions of religion: I was, therefore, much left to myself, to mingle with idle and wicked boys; and soon learnt their ways." " I was never at school but about two years; from my eighth to my tenth year. It was a boarding-school at Stratford, in Essex. Though my father left me much to run about the streets, yet, when under his eye, he kept me at a great distance. I am persuaded he loved me, but he seemed not willing that I should know it. I was with him in a state of fear and bondage. His sternness, together with the severity of my schoolmaster, broke and overawed my spirit, and almost made me a dolt; so that part of the two years I was at school, instead of making a progress, I nearly forgot all that my good mother had taught me. "The day I was eleven years old, I went on board my father's ship in Longreach. I made five voyages with him to the Mediterranean. In the course of the last voyage, he left me some months at Alicante in Spain, with a merchant, a particular friend of his. With him I might have done well, if I had behaved well: but, by this time, my sinful propensities had gathered strength by habit: I was very wicked, and therefore very foolish; and, being my own enemy, I seemed determined that nobody should be my friend. "My father left the sea in the year 1742. I made one voyage afterwards to Venice, before the mast; and, soon after my return, was impressed on board the Harwich. - Then began my awfully mad career, as recorded in the Narrative; to which, and to the Letters to a Wife, I must refer you for any further dates and incidents. "I am truly yours, John Newton" -~-~~-~~~-~~-~- Please watch: "A Call to Separation - A. W. Pink Christian Audio Books / Don't be Unequally Yoked / Be Ye Separate" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBDg7u21cKY -~-~~-~~~-~~-~-