This Week in Christian History: Fanny Crosby, Archbishop Burned at the Stake, 'Amazing Grace' Author Converted
'Amazing Grace' Author John Newton Converts to Christianity - March 21, 1748
This week marks the anniversary of when John Newton, former slave trader and author of the popular hymn "Amazing Grace," became a born again Christian.
The son of a believing mother and a non-believing father, Newton was on a ship headed home on that date when an intense storm arrived in the area.
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"Thus far the Lord had wrought a marvelous thing: I was no longer an infidel: I heartily renounced my former profaneness, and had taken up some right notions; was seriously disposed, and sincerely touched with a sense of the undeserved mercy I had received, in being brought safe through so many dangers," recalled Newton in a memoir.
"I was sorry for my past misspent life, and purposed an immediate reformation. I was quite freed from the habit of swearing, which seemed to have been as deeply rooted in me as a second nature. Thus, to all appearance, I was a new man."
Newton annually commemorated the date every year as the anniversary of his conversion, writing 48 years later that he could never forget that "great turning day."
