'Twas Self that moved my heart to sing
And Self my dream to be lived;
How I boosted my self-esteeming
The hour I first believed

When we've been here for billions of years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing Self's praise
Than when we've first begun

John Newton (http://www.anointedlinks.com/amazing_grace.html), the author of the celebrated hymn Amazing Grace, was born in London docklands in 1725, the son of a merchant ship commander. He went to sea himself at the age of 11.

In 1744 he was press-ganged into service on a man-of-war, the HMS Harwich which he deserted because of the intolerable conditions. He was recaptured, publicly flogged and humiliatingly demoted. Even before he joined the slave trade, he had become a hardened, hard-drinking, hard-swearing 18th century seafarer. He eventually became captain of his own slaving vessel and it was during a homeward voyage from Sierra Leone that his ship hit a violent storm during which he cried out to God for mercy.

He had had some early Christian teaching from his mother who had died when he was a child but he had long since given up any religious convictions. This terrible storm, however, brought him back to God. For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of May 10th, 1748 as the day of his conversion.

Amazing Grace, the hymn, is the fruit of his experience, but more than that for John Newton God's amazing grace was the primary cause of his conversion, for grace means God's loving goodness towards those who do not deserve it. Almost by definition a slave-trader treating his fellow human beings as commodities to be packaged and sold does not deserve God's amazing grace. But God found John Newton, forgave him and opened his eyes to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, who had died for his sins:

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.

In 1764 Newton was ordained as an Anglican minister and served at Olney in Buckinghamshire during which time he wrote a number of famous hymns which were published in 1779 as the Olney Hymns. Amazing Grace was first published in that collection.

Amazing Grace expresses Newton's continuing trust and confidence in the God who had saved him on that dreadful stormy night at sea, not merely from the storm but from the far more dreadful fate of everlasting alienation from the loving God who made us and who sent us his Son to die for us.

But in the politically correct dystopia of 2035 the children forced to sing Amazing Self at the start of their school day were of course told none of that.

Julian Mann is vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire