Through Many Dangers The Story of John Newton

A common sailor at the age of eleven and press-ganged onto a man-of-war at nineteen, John Newton experienced the thrill of Action against French's warships, The cruel lash of navy discipline for desertion, the loose and baasphemous, life of a free thinker, and the pain of an overwhelming love for a girl beyond his reach. Rejecting God and morality, Newton entered the slave-trade, became a slave himself and by the age of twenty-three was little removed from the state of a wild animal. A violent Atlantic storm brought Newton to his knees and to his God. With changing life and growing faith there followed years as a slave captain and customs man, in the heyday of smuggling, before he entered the ministry. This servant of slaves rose to occupy the pulpit of the most influential church in London, numbering among his friends a politician, a poet and a playwright, each of whom became national figures.