Robin 'rites    

March 2007

Dear Friend,

On the 25^th of this month this country will be involved in a number of events to recognise that on 25^th March 1807 the British Parliament voted for a Law that was to have consequences throughout the whole world. The new Law prohibited British ships from transporting slaves anywhere on the high seas.

There were many involved in bringing in that legislation - William Wilberforce, William Cowper (the hymn writer) and even John Wesley on his death bed. But another has cemented himself into history, John Newton.

John Newton had not always been the saintly and respected clergyman of his later years. He said towards the end of his life: ‘My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things; that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Saviour”

He, like John Wesley, was on his way to America and was greatly affected by a severe storm at sea.

His life had been hard and his mother died when he was only six years old. At the age of eleven he joined his Father’s ship and later was press-ganged into the Navy.

Situations on board were horrendous and because he was often severely punished, he jumped ship.

He became involved in the slave trade and then jumped ship again and spent a year in Sierra Leone, sick and degraded, bullied by an African woman.

At last a message came from England and he returned home but not before experiencing a ferocious storm. It was a storm that led to his conversion.

He wrote: ‘Oh! I have reason to praise God for that storm: for the apprehension I had, first of sinking under the weight of all my sins into that ocean and into eternity. Then I began to think; I attempted to pray and my first half-formed prayers were answered’

That storm shocked John Newton into facing his own sins and making a life commitment to Jesus.

The rough sailor who had been the slave of every kind of evil became a slave to Christ and gave his life to preaching the good news that had set him free.

One of his hymns put his life in verse;

‘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.’

Please join us for a circuit celebration which I am putting together for the Bicentenary of the passing of that important legislation. Frinton at 6.30pm on 25^th March.

With kind regards

Robin

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