It's Amazing Grace Day, PIggies! 🐹 💙 💜 💙 ✝️ 🌈 ⛪

"🎶 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."

~ Amazing Grace, John Newton, 1748


Today marks the day in the life of John Newton that later inspired him to write the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

Published in 1779, it has become one of the most widely known and sung hymns in the world.

Newton’s life followed a difficult and often turbulent path. As a young man, he was pressed into service in the Royal Navy, and after leaving, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade.

A defining moment came on March 21, 1748. While aboard a ship in a violent storm off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, Newton feared for his life. In that moment, he cried out for mercy—an experience he later described as the beginning of his spiritual awakening.

This did not bring immediate change. He continued in the slave trade for several more years before leaving seafaring in the mid-1750s. In the years that followed, he began to study Christian theology and was ordained in the Church of England in 1764.

His later opposition to the slave trade developed gradually. In 1788, he published Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade, a pamphlet in which he described the conditions of the trade and expressed remorse for his involvement. He subsequently supported the abolitionist movement and provided testimony that contributed to its efforts to end the trade.


Wheek! Wheek!