Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav'd 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 reliev'd;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ'd!

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

The Lord has promis'd good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion 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 call'd me here below,
Will be forever mine.

Amazing grace is probably the most famous hymn. The author John Newton wrote the hymn as he thought that he had been saved by Gods grace.

John was born in London 24[suP]th[/suP] July, 1725 and he was the son of a commander of a merchant ship which plied the Mediterranean. At age eleven John went to sea with his father and made a number of trips with him. John served aboard the HMS Harwich in 1744. He could not take life aboard this vessel so he deserted subsequent to which he was caught and punished. John requested that he would serve on a slave ship and his request was successful. The slave ship that John served on worked the coast of Sierra Leone. John Newton finally captained his own slave ship shortly thereafter.

Heading home one day steering his ship during a heavy storm he said that he had his “great deliverance�. He shouted “Lord have mercy upon us� at the height of the storm when he feared he would lose his ship and his life. He survived the storm with his life and his ship and attributed this to God’s grace towards him. From that moment on he claims to be more spiritually centered. He went on to continue in the slave trade for some time after his apparent conversion although claiming that he treated the slaves under his care more humanely than previously.

Whenever I hear this hymn, and even more when I hear the bagpipes version, I cannot help but feel eerily stirred and have visions of the deprivations of the people who were carried by John as what amounted to nothing more than cargo. I ask myself where was grace for them as they were stacked aboard ship in inhumane conditions, what grace for those that perished aboard and were thrown overboard to litter the ocean floor, what grace was there in their welcome to a foreign shore, what grace was in their treatment and deaths there? When John alledges that he received grace from God did he not think to extend this gift to his fellow man?
Whenever I see/hear a black person singing this homage to John I am somewhat fascinated as to what rationale is being practiced by this person.